Former Liverpool star who joined club for seven-figure sum at 16 unemployed after release from non-league Maidstone
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A FORMER Liverpool prospect who cost the club £1MILLION at 16 is now unemployed after being released from non-league Maidstone.
Yusuf Mersin joined the Reds as a youngster after impressing at Championship side Millwall in 2011.
He reportedly joined the club in a seven-figue deal despite his young age.
He made the move to Anfield while studying for his GCSEs and his dad congratulated on his son's move by Liverpool legend .
Now 28, he has found himself on the hint for a new club after being released by Maidstone after two-years at the club.
Mersin spent the most recent season out on loan at Welling United.
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He told : "The papers were saying I cost £1 million.
"It’s nice to have that, although I didn’t see any of the money.
"It’s mad looking back, thinking about it now.
"It was all a bit surreal at the time. I was still at school and suddenly I was leaving everything behind to start a new life up north.
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"I didn’t really know what was going to happen."
He spent three years at Liverpool, but never made a first team appearance before leaving for Turkish side Kasımpaşa in 2014.
However, Mersin believed that he was close to getting a new contract at the club after playing for the youth sides.
He added: "At the end of my contract I was verbally told I would probably get a new deal but I went over on my ankle badly and injured myself, which did for that.
"[Simon] Mignolet drove me home from Melwood to where I was staying and he didn’t have to do that.
"He was a great keeper and a great man, so I’ll always remember that.
“It was an unbelievable time, going into these team meetings, an unbelievable experience. I still feel attached to the club now.
"My missus is Scouse and all her family are mad football fans, and I still speak to the first-team goalkeeper coach, John Achterberg, and some of the other guys there."
After leaving Kasımpaşa, he went on to play for Crawley Town and Dover Athletic before joining Maidstone.