Barcelona have reached an agreement with
Liverpool to acquire midfielder Philippe Coutinho,
the clubs confirmed on Saturday.
Multiple reports in both Spain and England
suggest the two clubs reached a transfer fee of
£142 million (€160m, $192.7m), with Liverpool
receiving £105m up-front and the rest
in performance-related add-ons.
The full figure would make Coutinho, 25, the
second-most expensive player in world football
behind Neymar, who left Barcelona for Paris
Saint-Germain last summer in a deal worth
€222m (£200m, $263m).
Barcelona said the Brazilian would sign a five-
and-a-half year contract with a buyout clause of
€400m. Liverpool said the deal was still subject
to formalities including a medical and agreement
of personal terms.
Liverpool rejected three offers -- the highest
£118m -- for Coutinho from the Catalan outfit
last summer after the player filed a transfer
request, with the English club's owners, Fenway
Sports Group, then holding a firm not-for-sale
stance.
Coutinho is currently sidelined with a thigh injury
and was among a number of Liverpool players
who stayed behind as the rest of the team
departed for a warm-weather training camp in
Dubai following Friday's FA Cup win.
He has not played in either of Liverpool's
matches since the winter transfer window opened
on Jan. 1 because of a minor thigh problem,
though manager Jurgen Klopp had said this week
that he expected the Brazilian to be fit for next
weekend.
Klopp said in a statement that the club bid
Coutinho farewell with "great reluctance."
"It is no secret that Philippe has wanted this
move to happen since July, when Barcelona first
made their interest known," Klopp said. "Philippe
was insistent with me, the owners and even his
teammates this was a move he was desperate to
make happen.
"Despite that, we managed to keep the player
here beyond the summer window, hoping that we
would be able to persuade him to stay and be
part of what we are looking to do.
"I can tell the Liverpool supporters that we, as a
club, have done everything within our means to
convince Philippe that remaining part of LFC was
as attractive as moving to Spain, but he is 100
percent certain his future -- and that of his
family -- belongs at Barcelona.
"It is his dream and I am now convinced there is
nothing left at our disposal to change his mind."
Coutinho scored 41 Premier League goals since
joining Liverpool from Inter Milan in January
2013, the 14th-most in the span since his debut.
His 504 shots in that time rank fourth, while his
35 assists are sixth.
Inter, meanwhile, are set to miss out on a huge
financial windfall as they did not insert a sell-on
clause when they sold Coutinho to Liverpool for
£11.7m, a source told ESPN FC in August.
Instead, the Italian side, along with Brazilian club
Vasco da Gama -- where Coutinho began his
footballing career -- believe they are only in line
to receive a very small percentage of the transfer
fee under FIFA's solidarity mechanism.
The solidarity payment amounts to just 5 percent
of the agreed transfer fee, with the buying club
withholding that figure and then distributing it
among clubs who qualify for payment. The full 5
percent would not be allocated between Inter and
Vasco, with Liverpool having Coutinho on their
books since he was 20 years of age.
Coutinho will reunite with former teammate Luis
Suarez at Barcelona, after the Uruguayan striker
left Anfield for the Camp Nou in 2014.
Barcelona, who host Levante in La Liga on
Sunday, lead the Spanish league by six points
and are also through to the knockout stage of the
Champions League. They will face Chelsea
beginning in February, but Coutinho will not be
eligible because he already played for Liverpool in
the group stage.
Liverpool, fourth in the Premier League, made a
transfer splash of their own this month by
spending £75m to get Virgil van Dijk from
Southampton -- a world record for a defender.
Coutinho made his debut for Brazil in 2010 and
played at the Copa America in 2015 and 2016. He
is yet to appear at a World Cup but played in 13
of Brazil's 18 qualifiers for Russia 2018.
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