Reported Barcelona transfer plan would cost Liverpool £18m windfall

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Barcelona have reportedly got a plan for the January transfer window that could impact Liverpool. It’s one that would cost the Reds a considerable windfall, however.

This comes from Ara in Catalonia. They claim that Barcelona plan to offload former Liverpool midfielder Philippe Coutinho in the January transfer window.

The Brazilian has struggled to be a success there, of course. But the club’s financial situation means they’re looking for cash at the start of the year.

Coutinho is one of the most highly-priced assets but more importantly, he has huge wages. Cutting those would help Barcelona quite considerably.

He’s currently on £20m per year, with a contract that has two more years after this one. That may not shift easily. Especially when the report claims Barcelona tried to sell him for £54m over the summer but no one bit.

So how do Liverpool come into all of this? Well, if these reports are true, you can imagine we’ll see plenty of ‘Coutinho back to Liverpool’ rumours.

Now, we can’t see any transfer actually happening but this transfer plan actually impacts Liverpool in another way.

Per the Daily Mail, part of the original deal to sell Coutinho to Barcelona included a series of clauses. One of those was that the Catalonians would pay Liverpool £18m if Coutinho played 100 games for them.

He’s currently on 87.

He would almost certainly pass the 100 mark if he stuck around for the season but Barcelona save themselves an awful lot of money if he doesn’t.

They’d get a fee, they’d move on his considerable wage, and they’d kill that £18m clause.

So to sum up, this isn’t good news for Liverpool and we’d be shocked if Coutinho stayed beyond January.

It actually makes sense, at this point, to let him go for free. That would save Barcelona over £60m, given the clause and the contract.

They’ll get a fee, of course – Coutinho is too good for a free transfer. But when laid out like that, it’s hard to see how Liverpool get their hands on that £18m.