Liverpool would have considered selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona in the closing hours of the Spanish transfer window… but only for £183million.
That was the claim of Barcelona director Albert Soler on Saturday in the aftermath of a deadline day in which the club failed to bring in Coutinho or any other transfer target.
Despite Liverpool’s public insistence that their Brazilian playmaker would not be sold Barcelona continually suggested that they believed they could secure Coutinho this summer.
Soler remarkably claimed in a press conference this morning that the Reds eventually sanctioned the sale of Coutinho after the Premier League’s transfer window had closed, meaning they would not have been able to register a replacement until January.
However Barcelona refused to pay Liverpool’s asking price, which would have amounted to almost all of the £200m they received from Paris Saint-Germain for Neymar earlier this summer.
“After weeks of negotiations, yesterday Liverpool asked us for €200m for the player,” Soler said. “We will not put the club at risk.
“We have always worked with the mission not to put at risk the heritage and the viability of the club which is owned by the members.
“The fact that PSG came up with €222m [for Neymar] caused everyone to know that the club had money. When you go to the market and clubs know that you have a lot of money, the requests were exorbitant.”
Coutinho has not featured for Liverpool this season due to a back injury but played half an hour off the bench in Brazil’s 2-0 World Cup qualifying win over Ecuador on Friday, scoring the second goal.
