The pandemic had an impact on Liverpool and FSG, but they escaped relatively unscathed. This could provide them with significant transfer leverage over Inter Milan.
Almost every football club was affected by the pandemic over the last two years, but several were particularly hard hit. FSG made themselves very unpopular by attempting to use the furlough scheme, which they later reversed, but in reality, Liverpool avoided the worst consequences.
Juventus, Barcelona, and Inter Milan were undoubtedly the most rocked of the European royalty. Of course, their massive losses were not solely the result of the pandemic. In the case of Juventus and Barcelona, it was due to reckless spending, with transfer fees and wages far exceeding their means.
In the case of Inter, it wasn’t that they were reckless in the way that Juventus or Barcelona are, but that they simply don’t generate enough revenue to compete at the highest levels of the European game. Antonio Conte’s arrival brought with it a slew of demands from the fiery Italian in order to end the Old Lady’s nine-year hegemony over the Italian game.
By the end of the 2020-21 season, Inter had indeed broken the run that Conte had himself initiated back when he was Juventus coach at the beginning of the 2010s. But that success, albeit seismic, came at a huge financial cost.
Last season, Inter Milan posted financial losses of £220m (€245m), the highest ever recorded by a Serie A side (until Juve broke it this season, having just announced losses of a staggering £228m). A year later, Inter’s losses aren’t quite as steep, but they still came to the tune of approximately £125m (€140m).
This means that, unquestionably, a player or two will have to be sold next summer. And one of them could be midfield dynamo, Nicolò Barella.
Barella has one of the highest values in the squad. Slovak defender Milan Škriniar is also up there, but the 27-year-old’s contract is close to running out, and an extension is proving difficult to nail down. Therefore it would mean that Barella could be the huge financial sacrifice Inter needs to make in order to balance the books ahead of the 2022-23 financial year.
Liverpool and FSG could take full advantage of that next summer.
It’s no secret that the club will likely rejuvenate the midfield. Players will leave and others could be sold. Jude Bellingham will be the number one FSG target, but Bellingham alone isn’t enough to fix the issues in midfield. Jürgen Klopp needs a box-to-box player like Barella for the right-hand side.
At 25, Barella is coming into his prime now at Inter. Should he make a summer switch to Liverpool, he’d be 26, and still with plenty of years left at the highest level.
Valued at around £63m by Transfermarkt, it would be a no-brainer to make a move for him if the signals coming out of San Siro indicated Inter Milan were open to offers. With the cost for Bellingham reaching eye-watering figures as is, Barella would make a lot more financial sense. Something which by its absence ironically has landed the Italian side into their current predicament.
If the chance to sign the former Cagliari player arises, it’s one Liverpool must simply take. With the state of Inter Milan’s finances, it looks more and more likely that FSG could get a transfer opportunity.
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