Barcelona sporting director Robert Fernandez has revealed that Liverpool changed the valuation of Philippe Coutinho in the last hours of Spain’s transfer window on Friday.
Liverpool kept knocking back bids from Barcelona in the summer for Coutinho despite the player slapping in a transfer request and wanting to leave the club for the Nou Camp.
Barcelona made one final attempt to sign the Brazilian attacking midfielder on Friday, before the Spanish window closed, but it has emerged that they backtracked as Liverpool demanded a huge fee to sell the player.
Fernandez has claimed that the Reds demanded €200m for Coutinho, which forced the Catalan giants to end their interest in the player, despite wanting to sign him in the summer.
The Barcelona sporting director feels Liverpool’s demands, coupled with the general inflation of player values in the market, showed that the decisions are not being taken by football people at most clubs.
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He said in a press conference: “Yesterday at the last minute Liverpool put a price of €200m on a player we wanted.
“We decided that we would not be pursuing him.
"It is a sign that the new model of understanding football is not being led by football people.
“And we won’t be participating in this new model.”
Coutinho has not played for Liverpool yet because of a back injury, which was communicated by the club, but featured and scored in Brazil’s World Cup qualifier on Wednesday night.
