Barcelona will first need to sell at least five players if they want to sign Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho, due to the Catalan giant’s huge wage bill, according to Miguel Rico.
Barcelona have been trailing Philippe Coutinho since the summer transfer window but they have failed to land the flamboyant midfielder.
It was believed that it was Liverpool’s stance of not wanting sell Coutinho was the main reason for the collapse of the move but recent reports suggest that Barcelona might also not be in the financial position to sign the Brazilian during the January transfer window.
This conclusion is drawn from recent reports which suggest that currently 84% of Barca’s budget is used to pay players’ wages and as a result, Catalan giants are in no position to make a high profile signing like Coutinho without lowering their current wage bill.
In addition, El Mundo Deportivo columnist Miguel Rico wrote in his column regarding Barca’s current issues saying that they will need to sell at least five players to be in the position to afford Coutinho’s wages.
He wrote, “If Barcelona don’t bring the wage bill down from the 84 percent mark, they cannot sign Coutinho even if Liverpool let him leave for free.”
As a silver lining, there are many unwanted players in the Barca such as Arda Turan, Thomas Vermaelen, Andre Gomes, Alex Vidal and Paco Alcacer rank who are earning massive wages and all of them can command decent transfer fees to help Barcelona to reduce the wage bill.
