Full name: Florian Richard Wirtz Born: May 3, 2003 — Pulheim, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany (born at home, in the Brauweiler district) Father: Hans-Joachim Wirtz — former amateur footballer, chairman of SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler, and Florian’s agent Mother: Karin Wirtz (née Gross) — former handball coach, co-manages Florian’s career Full siblings: Juliane Wirtz (born August 22, 2001) — professional footballer, Werder Bremen, Frauen-Bundesliga Half-siblings: Eight others from parents’ previous relationships (four brothers, four sisters including Marie and Sophia) Current club: Liverpool FC (signed July 2025, £100m guaranteed, rising to £116m) Girlfriend: Aaliyah Cloßen — TikTok influencer, from the Cologne region Position: Attacking midfielder, Germany national team
There is a DAZN reporter who is probably still embarrassed about this.
During a post-match interview at the BayArena in the 2023-24 season, after Leverkusen had beaten Freiburg, the reporter turned to Florian Wirtz’s parents in the stands and — on live television — asked whether his “grandma and grandpa” had come to watch him play.
Hans-Joachim Wirtz was 71. His wife Karin was in her mid-60s. Their son, one of the most gifted footballers Germany had produced in a generation, was 20.
Florian gently corrected the reporter: “No, that’s actually my parents.”
The story got a lot of laughs. But it says something real about the Wirtz family — a blended household of ten children, parents who were already in middle age when their youngest was born, and a family so absorbed in football that for years they didn’t feel the need to own a television. The outside world looked at them and saw something unusual. The family looked back and saw normal life.
This is the story most articles about Florian Wirtz skip past in a sentence. It deserves more than that.
The Family of Ten: How Florian Wirtz Grew Up
Florian Wirtz is the youngest of ten children.
Not five. Not six. Ten.
Four brothers and five sisters — the exact configuration of half-siblings and full siblings, for anyone keeping track, is this: only Florian and his immediate older sister Juliane share both parents. The other eight are from Hans-Joachim’s and Karin’s previous relationships. That makes the Wirtz household a blended family of considerable size, with an age range across the siblings that spans decades.
Florian was born in 2003 when his father was around 50 and his mother in her early 40s. By any measure, a late child — the last piece of a family that was already well-established when he arrived. He has described growing up in a house that was loud, competitive, and completely football-obsessed, which, given what you’re about to read about his father, makes perfect sense.
Most of the siblings apart from one — a sister named Marie — played football growing up. Juliane turned it into a professional career. Sophia ended up working in Bayer Leverkusen’s marketing department, which means even the sibling who didn’t play the game stayed close to it.
There are worse environments for developing a world-class footballer.
Hans-Joachim Wirtz: The Chairman, the Coach, the Agent
Hans-Joachim Wirtz is, depending on who you ask, either the most involved football father in the Bundesliga or a deeply practical man who saw an opportunity to protect his son and took it.
Probably both.
Born around 1954, Hans-Joachim was a former amateur footballer who never went professional but never stopped being in football either. He became chairman of SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler — the local club in Pulheim’s Brauweiler district, the same club where Florian and Juliane would first kick a ball. He coached youth teams. He refereed. He absorbed every level of the game’s ecosystem from the bottom up, spending years around grassroots football in a way that gave him a thorough, unromantic understanding of how the industry actually works.
When Florian started showing signs at age six that he was something different, Hans-Joachim was already positioned to be his guide. By the time professional scouts started appearing at Brauweiler and asking questions, he had already done the research. When Cologne came calling for the eight-year-old Florian, Hans-Joachim was the one who weighed it up, talked to the family, and made a pragmatic decision rooted in geography as much as football logic.
He explained it himself: “The family decided that we should try a year at Cologne, but it was tough to come to that decision. We also looked at Bayer Leverkusen and found a good situation there, but it was a pragmatic decision to go to Geißbockheim because the location was good.”
Not ideology. Not prestige. Location. The man understood what mattered.
When Florian left Cologne for Leverkusen at 16, Hans-Joachim was there. When Leverkusen came to extend his contract, Hans-Joachim negotiated. When Liverpool came with the biggest offer in his son’s career, it was Hans-Joachim who sat across the table and handled the deal — not a high-profile sports agency, not a firm with a roster of 400 clients and a team of lawyers who barely know the player’s name.
His own father.
The no-TV household
Here is the detail that journalists love and that says something genuinely true about this family.
For most of Florian’s early childhood, the Wirtz household did not own a television. This was not poverty. It was a deliberate choice — Hans-Joachim and Karin wanted the family spending their time at Grün-Weiß Brauweiler, not in front of a screen. Local matches, training sessions, the social life of a community club: that was the entertainment.
The family finally bought a TV just before Euro 2016.
Florian was 13. He had been playing organised football for seven years already. He had spent his entire childhood watching live football at the local ground rather than on a screen — and that proximity to the real thing, to the smell of the pitch and the sound of a crowd (even a small one), shaped how he understood the game before he ever understood it tactically.
There is something fitting about the fact that he grew up watching football in person rather than on broadcast — and then, twenty years later, became one of the most-watched players in the world.
Born at home, in Brauweiler
Hans-Joachim said it himself, with the dry humour of a man who has long made peace with the unusual: “That’s how brave we were back then.”
Florian Wirtz was not born in a hospital. He was born at home, in the family house in the Brauweiler district of Pulheim. During Euro 2024, Deutsche Bahn — Germany’s national railway company — put signs up across the country pointing visitors to the birthplaces of each squad member. Florian’s sign pointed to Brauweiler. It pointed to a house.
That’s where the tenth child of the Wirtz family entered the world on May 3, 2003. His father was around 49. His mother was in her early 40s. His sister Juliane was eighteen months old. Eight other siblings were already somewhere in the world.
The €8.6 million agent fee that went viral
When Florian completed his move to Liverpool in the summer of 2025, a photo circulated that captured the moment perfectly.
Father and son, at Liverpool’s training ground, both wearing red. Florian in his new shirt, beaming. Hans-Joachim standing proudly nearby — wearing a replica Liverpool jersey with his own name on the back.
One fan’s response to the photo became the most shared comment about the transfer: “Florian Wirtz’s dad has the aura of a man that’s just collected €8.6 million in agent fees.”
That fan wasn’t wrong. According to German outlet Bild, Hans-Joachim and Karin were set to receive €8.6 million for their role in negotiating the Liverpool transfer — the commission on a deal worth up to £116 million.
Some people raised an eyebrow. But it’s worth noting that the same parents who negotiated this deal are the ones who turned down advances from clubs when their son was eight years old and calmly chose Cologne because the geography was convenient. They have been doing this for fifteen years. They know what they’re doing.
Karin Wirtz: The Former Handball Coach Running His Finances
Karin Gross — she married Hans-Joachim and became Karin Wirtz — brings a different set of skills to the partnership.
She is a former handball coach, which means she understands athletic development, physical load management, and the psychology of competitive sport from the inside. That background shaped how she and Hans-Joachim approached Florian’s development. Not just the career decisions — the physical ones too. The pace of his progression, the decisions about when to accelerate and when to protect.
She also handles the financial side of Florian’s career. While Hans-Joachim manages the contracts and the relationships, Karin manages the money. In an industry where young footballers’ finances are routinely mishandaged — sometimes accidentally, sometimes not — having a parent in that role, with skin in the game and no incentive to exploit the asset, is a structural advantage.
She was there at every major moment. She was in the stands at Germany matches. She was at Leverkusen through the double. She was at Liverpool for the signing. And she was, by every account, the quieter of the two parents publicly — the one whose influence ran through the operation rather than across the surface of it.
Juliane Wirtz: The Sister Germany Also Watches
Juliane Wirtz was born on August 22, 2001, in Pulheim — eighteen months before her brother, the last child of the same two parents.
She is a professional footballer. A central midfielder. She has played in the Frauen-Bundesliga for over seven years, logging more than 125 senior appearances across Bayer Leverkusen Women and Werder Bremen. She has represented Germany at every youth level from U15 to U19.
And she is, unambiguously, the most underwritten member of the most famous footballing family in Germany right now.
Most articles about Florian mention Juliane in one line: “his sister is also a footballer.” That is true and also completely inadequate.
Juliane started her professional career at 1. FC Köln Women in the 2017-18 season — the same club Florian would join in the academy, the same city, the same football culture. She moved to Bayer Leverkusen Women in 2018, where she would spend five years. Florian, by 2020, was also at Bayer Leverkusen — on the men’s side. For three years, the Wirtz siblings played for the same club simultaneously, in different competitions, in the same building.
In the summer of 2023, Juliane moved to Werder Bremen Women, where she plays now.
Her own career in numbers
Through the 2024-25 Frauen-Bundesliga season, Juliane had made over 125 senior club appearances, recording three goals and four assists at the top level. She plays as a central midfielder — the same position her brother plays, though their styles differ. She is a physical, disciplined defensive-minded midfielder; he is a creative, off-the-ball, attacking one. They got the same football education from the same parents and ended up on opposite ends of the midfield spectrum.
She averaged a FotMob rating of 6.99 across her appearances for Werder in 2024-25. Consistent, reliable, professional. The kind of player a well-run club depends on.
The sibling bond that runs through everything
There is a moment from Euro 2024 that tells you something about the Wirtz family.
Germany played Spain in the quarter-finals. It was a match Germany were expected to lose, and ultimately did — 2-1 in extra time after a tense, high-quality 90 minutes. Florian Wirtz scored the equaliser with four minutes to go in normal time, one of the goals of the tournament: a low driven finish after cutting inside, sending the German end of the stadium into delirium.
When the final whistle came — after the Spanish winner, after the elimination — the Wirtz family were in the stands. Hans-Joachim was there. Karin was there. Aaliyah, Florian’s girlfriend, was photographed chatting with Kai Havertz’s partner Sophia Weber in the stands. Juliane, watching her younger brother get knocked out of a home tournament in extra time.
That is a family built on football. The joy and the pain are the same for all of them.
The Half-Siblings: Marie, Sophia, and the Rest of a Big Blended Family
Of the eight half-siblings from Hans-Joachim’s and Karin’s previous relationships, two have surfaced publicly enough to be known by name.
Marie Wirtz became briefly but genuinely viral in 2025, after posting a tribute to Florian on social media following one of his standout performances. The post was warm, personal, and clearly written by someone who knew the person behind the player rather than the public figure. The internet responded to it immediately — it accumulated significant engagement and was shared widely across football social media. Marie had not sought the spotlight. The post simply happened to land at a moment when the world was paying attention to her brother.
Sophia Wirtz works in Bayer Leverkusen’s marketing department. That specific detail — a sibling employed by the club her brother just left on a record transfer — is one that passes unnoticed in most coverage but is worth pausing on. It speaks to a family so integrated into Leverkusen’s world that even the transition away from the club carries family threads. Sophia reportedly manages brand and marketing work at the club. Hans-Joachim also manages her career alongside his other children’s.
The other six half-siblings have stayed private. Almost all of them, it was reported, played football growing up — all except Marie, the one who went viral by writing about it instead.
Brauweiler: The Neighbourhood That Made Him
Brauweiler is a district of Pulheim, a town of around 55,000 people just northwest of Cologne. It is not glamorous. It is not a famous football city. It is the kind of place where a local club chairman can still know every child at the training ground by name, where a family can spend their evenings watching youth team football without it being a novelty, where a ten-child household can feel entirely ordinary.
SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler is the club where both Florian and Juliane first played. Hans-Joachim is still the chairman. The family spent so much time there — evenings, weekends, tournaments — that the television seemed beside the point.
When Florian moved to Cologne’s academy at eight, the commute from Pulheim was manageable. That was the point. Hans-Joachim had turned down other options because the geography worked. He had spent years at Grün-Weiß Brauweiler watching football being played and developed at a local level. He knew the difference between a club that suited the family and one that suited a headline.
Florian has never publicly distanced himself from Brauweiler. He grew up there. His parents still live in the area. His father is still the chairman of the club. The background is always there, even when the foreground is Anfield.
The ACL Injury at 18: What the Family Went Through
On March 13, 2022, Florian Wirtz tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee.
He was 18 years old. He was playing for Leverkusen against Cologne — the club he’d left two years earlier, the club that still felt like part of his story. He went down in the first half after a duel with Luca Kilian, clutched his knee, and was stretchered off. The diagnosis came after the game.
He missed 43 matches. He was out for most of the rest of the 2021-22 season and did not return until January 2023. Germany boss Hansi Flick, who had called him one of the greatest talents German football had produced in years, phoned him personally that evening.
It was during this period that his girlfriend Aaliyah became a constant presence in his recovery. According to Bild, she was there throughout the rehabilitation — the long, grinding, mentally exhausting months of gym work and physio and gradual return to training that an ACL recovery demands. She came to games. She was embedded in the family world.
Hans-Joachim and Karin managed the recovery process the same way they managed his career: carefully and without panic. They had built a structure around their son that was designed for exactly this kind of moment — a family unit that didn’t disappear when the results got hard.
He came back. He came back fully and completely. In 2023-24, he was the creative engine of the Leverkusen side that won the Bundesliga unbeaten — the first unbeaten German champions in history — and won the DFB-Pokal too. He scored 11 Bundesliga goals and provided 11 assists that season. The ACL, by the time Liverpool came calling, felt like something that happened to a different, younger person.
Germany boss Flick was right. He came back strong.
Aaliyah Cloßen: The Girlfriend Who Stayed Through All of It
Aaliyah Cloßen — known on TikTok as @aaliyahcl — is from the Cologne region, which means she and Florian grew up in adjacent worlds without necessarily knowing it.
The pair are believed to have started their relationship in 2022, which means they began dating either just before or around the time of the ACL injury. That timing matters. She didn’t fall for the Leverkusen star at the peak of his form. She was there during the worst injury of his career, during the months of rehabilitation, during the long stretch when nobody could guarantee he would return to the level he’d reached.
She has over 115,000 TikTok followers and 2.5 million likes, primarily from “get ready with me” content featuring fashion, lifestyle, and makeup. Her Instagram is private. She is, by temperament, a private person who happens to be with a very public one.
She was on the pitch at the BayArena celebrating Leverkusen’s unbeaten title win in 2024. She was in the stands at Euro 2024, photographed chatting with Sophia Weber before Germany’s quarter-final. When Florian signed for Liverpool, she moved to Merseyside with him.
She is also, reportedly, part of the extended family unit. She has been seen with Hans-Joachim and with Florian’s siblings at matches — not as a girlfriend being introduced, but as someone already woven into the fabric of the family.
The Liverpool Move: What the Family Said
Liverpool agreed a deal worth £100 million guaranteed, rising to £116 million in add-ons, in June 2025. It was a club record for Liverpool and, depending on the add-ons, a potential British transfer record.
Manchester City had been interested. Bayern Munich had been linked. Real Madrid, under Xabi Alonso, was rumoured. In the end, Florian chose Liverpool — and he described his reasoning clearly: “I think I was the first one in my family who was really into this club when they spoke to us or told us that they are interested in signing me.”
His family, he said, took little convincing once they knew where his heart was.
Hans-Joachim was there at the signing, wearing that replica Liverpool jersey with his name on the back. The photo went everywhere. There was warmth in it — a father in his early 70s, standing in a Premier League training ground, wearing his son’s team’s shirt with his own name on it, having just negotiated the biggest deal of both their lives.
For anyone who found it amusing, consider the alternative: an anonymous agency executive in an expensive suit who met Florian twice before flying to Liverpool. The jersey is more honest.
Florian Wirtz Career and Records
He made his Leverkusen debut at 17 — two weeks after his birthday. He scored against Bayern Munich three weeks after that, becoming the youngest Bundesliga goalscorer in history at 17 years and 34 days old.
He went on to score 57 goals and provide further assists across 197 appearances for Leverkusen. He was central to the 2023-24 season that produced the first unbeaten Bundesliga title in history, the DFB-Pokal, and a run to the Europa League final. He won back-to-back Bundesliga Player of the Month awards in December 2024 and January 2025.
At Liverpool, he signed a five-year contract worth approximately £195,000 a week. His first season at Anfield was one of adjustment — the Premier League’s tempo even caught a player of his quality off-guard in the early weeks, and he dealt with a minor back problem in early 2026 that kept him out briefly. But the talent that made him the most expensive signing in Liverpool’s history was never in question.
For Germany, he has made over 30 appearances and scored multiple goals since debuting in 2021.
He is 22 years old.
Key Facts at a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Florian Richard Wirtz |
| Born | May 3, 2003, at home in Brauweiler, Pulheim, Germany |
| Father | Hans-Joachim Wirtz (b. ~1954) — club chairman, former amateur footballer, Florian’s agent |
| Mother | Karin Wirtz née Gross (b. ~1960) — former handball coach, manages Florian’s finances |
| Full sister | Juliane Wirtz (b. August 22, 2001) — professional footballer, Werder Bremen |
| Half-siblings | 8 others from parents’ previous relationships; includes Marie and Sophia |
| Girlfriend | Aaliyah Cloßen — TikTok lifestyle creator, from Cologne region, together since ~2022 |
| Current club | Liverpool FC (signed July 2025) |
| Transfer fee | £100m guaranteed, up to £116m with add-ons |
| Weekly salary | ~£195,000 |
| Previous club | Bayer Leverkusen (2020–2025); FC Köln academy (2011–2020) |
| First club | SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler — still chaired by his father |
| Major injury | ACL (left knee), March 2022 — returned January 2023 |
| Nationality | German |
| Height | 177 cm (5 ft 10 in) |
Frequently Asked Questions About Florian Wirtz’s Family
Who are Florian Wirtz’s parents? His father is Hans-Joachim Wirtz, a former amateur footballer and the longtime chairman of SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler, the local club where Florian first played. His mother is Karin Wirtz (née Gross), a former handball coach. Both parents serve as Florian’s agents, managing his contracts and career decisions. During the 2025 Liverpool transfer, they reportedly earned €8.6 million in commission fees.
How many siblings does Florian Wirtz have? Florian is the youngest of ten children. He has four brothers and five sisters. Only he and his immediately older sister Juliane share both parents — the other eight siblings are half-siblings from his parents’ previous relationships.
Who is Florian Wirtz’s sister Juliane? Juliane Wirtz (born August 22, 2001) is a professional footballer who plays as a central midfielder for Werder Bremen in the Frauen-Bundesliga. She started her career at 1. FC Köln Women, spent five years at Bayer Leverkusen Women, and moved to Werder Bremen in 2023. She has represented Germany at every youth level from U15 to U19 and has over 125 senior club appearances. For three years (2020–2023), she and Florian played for the same club — Bayer Leverkusen — simultaneously.
Who is Florian Wirtz’s girlfriend? Her name is Aaliyah Cloßen, known on TikTok as @aaliyahcl. She is from the Cologne region and has over 115,000 TikTok followers. The couple are believed to have started dating in 2022 — around the time of Florian’s ACL injury. She supported him throughout his rehabilitation and has since been a regular presence at his matches. She moved to Liverpool with him after his transfer in 2025.
Why did Florian Wirtz’s family not own a television? Hans-Joachim and Karin Wirtz made a deliberate choice to keep the family away from screen time and focused on real, outdoor activity — particularly football at their local club, SV Grün-Weiß Brauweiler. The family did not buy a television until just before Euro 2016, by which time Florian was 13 and had been playing organised football for seven years.
Is Florian Wirtz’s father really his agent? Yes. Hans-Joachim Wirtz has managed Florian’s career from the beginning — including his move from Cologne to Leverkusen at 16, his contract extensions, and the 2025 transfer to Liverpool. Karin also co-manages his career, handling finances. This is unusual in professional football, where players of Wirtz’s level typically use established sports agencies. When Liverpool completed the signing, Hans-Joachim and Karin reportedly received €8.6 million in agent fees.
Was Florian Wirtz mistaken for having older grandparents at a match? Yes. During the 2023-24 season, a DAZN reporter interviewed Florian after a match and referred to his parents — who were in the stands — as his “grandma and grandpa.” Hans-Joachim was around 71 and Karin in her mid-60s. Florian gently corrected the reporter, explaining they were in fact his parents. The clip circulated widely and became one of the more memorable family moments associated with him.
Who is Sophia Wirtz? Sophia Wirtz is one of Florian’s half-siblings. She works in Bayer Leverkusen’s marketing department — the same club her brother played for from 2020 to 2025. Hans-Joachim reportedly manages her professional arrangements as well. She is one of several half-siblings from Hans-Joachim’s and Karin’s previous relationships.
Who is Marie Wirtz? Marie Wirtz is another of Florian’s half-siblings. She gained unexpected public attention in 2025 when a heartfelt sibling tribute she posted about Florian went viral on social media. She is not a public figure and had not sought any profile — the post simply resonated with a football audience that was already paying close attention to the Wirtz family.
Why did Florian Wirtz choose Liverpool over Bayern Munich and Manchester City? Florian has said that Liverpool was the club he was most enthusiastic about when they expressed interest, and that he was “the first one in his family” who was strongly in favour of the move. His family took little convincing once they understood his preference. Manchester City’s interest cooled due to the financial scale of the deal, and Bayern Munich were informed that Florian preferred Anfield.
What happened with Florian Wirtz’s ACL injury? On March 13, 2022, Florian tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee during a Bundesliga match against 1. FC Köln. He was 18 years old. He missed 43 matches and did not return until January 2023. His recovery was extensively supported by his girlfriend Aaliyah and his family. He returned to full fitness and was the standout creative player of Leverkusen’s historic unbeaten double-winning season in 2023-24.
Last updated: May 2026. Sources include Wikipedia, Bundesliga.com, Tribuna.com, Thick Accent, BBC Sport, Variety, ESPN, Opta Analyst, Bild (via multiple secondary sources), FotMob, Soccerway, and Goal.com.
Also read more family stories from the world of sport:
