Liverpool provided Porto with an upfront cash influx as a gesture of good will between the clubs and that has stopped a European ban for the Portuguese side.
According to Paul Joyce from The Times, the team that plays their home games in Estadio do Dragao were on the cusp of being banned from Europe for three years before we agreed to help them out.
It was of course part of the negotiations for the Luis Diaz deal but is still an unbelievably good gesture from those in charge of our club.
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Joyce wrote: ‘Another crucial element to the discussions was Liverpool’s willingness to provide Porto with a cash injection of £6.6 million ahead of the deal being complete, which staved off the threat of the Portuguese champions being excluded from European competition for three seasons.
‘Uefa contacted Porto at the start of December and informed them they were obliged to pay off all their debts by January 31.
‘They refused to relax their stance despite a plea from the club, who had been unable to sell fringe players’.
It’s all worked well and both sides leave the table happy but if this had been another Nabil Fekir case and the Colombian had failed his medical, it could have been a situation of huge embarrassment for Julian Ward who took the helm for the first time on this deal.
Instead, we can now applaud his work in finding a way to further sweeten the transaction and with many fans from the other side believing we got a good deal – it may have actually saved us some money in the long run.
Building a strong relationship with Porto may also come back to help us in the future, this could prove a master stroke given the Portuguese champions’ ability to unearth top South American talent.
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