CONFIDENTIAL SPORT: A frantic night in Barcelona's offices on Deadline Day
At one stage Barça thought Coutinho & Di Maria would arrive
In the end they were priced out of both deals by Liverpool & PSG
"The most frantic night that we've ever witnessed." That was how sources close to Barcelona's dealings on Friday described Deadline Day evening at the club's offices. Barça's directors began Friday in a sceptical manner, aware that the European market had closed in most countries without Liverpool signing a replacement for Philippe Coutinho and, worse, without giving signs of life.
SPORT learned first hand that the player was really disappointed and had already thrown in the towel. Aroundabout 6pm, Barça managed to directly contact Liverpool's biggest shareholder, John Henry, who was in the United States, and from that moment there was fluid contact.
Meanwhile, at 8pm, as this newspaper revealed, the club received a signal from Angel Di Maria's agents that Paris Saint-Germain were ready to negotiate. Barça also decided to explore this avenue. At 9pm, both operations were on the table and things became franctic. For one part, Liverpool agreed to name a price for Coutinho, although Barça didn't know what. Elsewhere, the club knew PSG were dropping their demands, but only from 100 million euros to 80 million.
The two clubs were a long way apart, but for the first time in many weeks there was hope. The door was open. PSG all of a sudden went from 80 million to 60 million, still above the 45 million Barça had offered. The agents decided to draw up contracts.
Di Maria was kept up to date and according to sources close to the negotiation expressed his excitement that the transfer could go through. It was at this moment that the club's executives informed Josep Maria Bartomeu by telephone that "the two operations were do-able."
200 MILLION FOR coutinho
Liverpool's owner, around 10pm, finally put a price on Coutinho: 200 million. Barça beleived it was a tactic from the English club to be able to tell the player that the Catalan club had not wanted to pay the price on the table and that they had broken off talks. It was at that point that the negotiation ended.
Minutes later, PSG communicated to Barça that they would not drop from a deal worth an initial 60 million. Barça then gave up on that deal, too, and began to leak that there would be no more signings. At that point, they decided to call a press conference for Saturday to give an explanation about what had happened. Coutinho, Di Maria or both could have come. In the end neither did. But it was a frantic night.
