After leaving Liverpool, Ibrahima Konate appears destined for Real Madrid.
The defender, 27, will become the second Liverpool first-teamer to join Los Blancos in as many years.
Unlike Trent Alexander-Arnold’s move, which Real accelerated in time for the Club World Cup last summer at a cost of almost £10m, Liverpool won’t see a penny if Konate does indeed make the switch.
There are scant details regarding why FSG’s representatives on Merseyside and Konate’s people were unable to reach an agreement, though it was less than two months ago that the France international suggested that a deal was “close”.
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For Liverpool to let an asset who had his critics but whose market value with a year or more remaining on his deal would be £30m-plus is a curiosity, especially for FSG whose reputation in the business is for being across the details in a way that many club owners aren’t.
If it is to be Andoni Iraola who takes the wheel at Anfield following Arne Slot’s exit, the void at centre-back will surely be one of the first items in his in-tray.
Of course, Real Madrid have made a habit of sniping players at the end of their contracts. As well as Arnold, David Alaba, Antonio Rudiger and Kylian Mbappe have all arrived at the Bernabeu for free in recent years. Sure, they pay gargantuan signing-on bonuses, but that’s a good cost of doing business.
So, in Konate’s case, have Liverpool simply been gazumped by a classic Florentino Perez play? Or, have FSG made a calculated gamble that didn’t pay off?
Speaking exclusively to Rousing The Kop, Professor Kieran Maguire, a football finance lecturer at University of Liverpool, suggests that it might be the latter.
“I’ve never known a club who are so on top of their stuff. Everything down to drawing pins is monitored.
“Liverpool’s approach would have been that they would have had X percentage of qualifying for the Champions League in 2025-26; and a Liverpool without Konate has Y chance of qualifying for the Champions League.
“Given that the benefits of qualifying for the Champions League are up to £100m, they’ll have made that calculation and concluded it was a price worth paying. They get an extra year out of the player and they don’t have to sign a replacement straight away.
“So it’s all very well saying they could have sold him last year but they would also have to replace him.
“They did mess up with Marc Guehi by trying to low-ball Palace. That has come back to bite them, and Konate had to fill that void.”
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