Jude Bellingham to Liverpool was a prospect that been rumbling on for the better part of two years.
After the Reds lost out on Aurelien Tchouameni last summer to Real Madrid the link with the 19-year-old Borussia Dortmund midfielder intensified, with the lack of spend to address their midfield deficiencies seen as a precursor to a move this coming summer.
It was always going to be an expensive play, but with the potential investment into Liverpool that could arrive by the summer that would allow owners Fenway Sports Group to recapitalise the business and free up funds for a heavier than usual outlay, there was hope it could be done.
It seems, however, that Liverpool’s hopes of being able to strike a deal have been sunk and that the true cost of the England international this summer was too great a financial burden to bear.
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The Times were the first to report on Tuesday evening that Liverpool had all but ended their pursuit of Bellingham, a player that the club courted during his days at Birmingham City. The view from inside Anfield was that the cost of getting the deal finalised for Bellingham would have been detrimental to the rest of the summer business that needs to be done, a summer where Liverpool’s recruitment team will likely have to work harder than they envisaged given the struggles on the pitch this season and the very obvious need for a significant rebuild, particularly in midfield.
Liverpool, barring a miraculous end of season run and a poor form for the sides in and around them in the Premier League, won’t be playing Champions League football next season. In fact, they still have plenty of work left to do if they want to be in the mix for the Europa League or Europa Conference League in 2023/24.
Missing out on the Champions League money for next season is impactful for a club run like Liverpool, where the performance of the balance sheet underpins what they do to aid the performance on the pitch. Last season’s run to the Champions League final delivered more than £100m for the Reds, while even winning the Europa League would struggle to deliver a quarter of that.
This summer Liverpool have to address a number of failings in order to make sure that a return to the Champions League elite and the riches that it brings is secured at the end of next season. The question will have been whether that pursuit was aided by the purchase of Bellingham and one or two others at lesser cost, or by using the money available to bring about improvements through more bodies arriving.
A figure of around £130m was mooted as what Dortmund were seeking for Bellingham, a player who has two years remaining on his deal in Germany and could yet spend another season in the Bundesliga and reassess his options in the summer of 2024.
Throw in wages of around £250,000 to £300,000 per week, at a conservative estimate, and the deal begins to become pretty costly for the club, especially given that they have very obvious deficiencies they need to address and that their problems are more deep rooted than perhaps was first thought.
After Chelsea’s spending spree of more than £500m was aided in no small part by the club offering eight and nine year deals to players to spread the annual cost of amortisation on the balance sheet, UEFA stepped in to limit deals to five years from this summer onwards. That means that, at best, signing Bellingham at £130m would mean a £26m per year amortisation cost in the club accounts. That is before the club attempts to add potentially another two midfielders, a defender and potentially another forward and without them having any real assets of value that they would realistically sell for a significant sum this summer, with a number of players heading out of Anfield on free transfers.
The exits of the likes of Naby Keita, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Roberto Firmino mean that there is significant wriggle room with regards to wages, but with turnover set to fall as a result of no Champions League there will have to be an element of managing cost. The most recent set of accounts had Liverpool with the second biggest wage bill in the Premier League at £366m, although the £54m rise year on year was attributed in no small measure to bonus payments made to players for the on-pitch successes of last season. The poor performance of this season will mean that bonus payments will be thin on the ground in next year’s accounts, although the renewing of Mohamed Salah’s deal last year will be included for the first time.
Liverpool’s amortisation costs were £102.7m for 2021/22, down from £107.8m for the 2020/21 period. That is the lowest of the top six, with Chelsea’s the most at £162.5m in their most recent accounts.
Say, for example, Liverpool spend £200m over the summer and bring in five players, each on five year contracts, that would be somewhere in the £40m per year bracket in terms of how it would appear on the balance sheet. There aren’t really the player trading savings to be on that given who they realistically have to sell. Exits for the likes of Joel Matip, Caoimhin Kelleher probably wouldn’t suffice, and the club need to be mindful of having a squad. Even fringe players have to be replaced and upgraded adequately.
Maybe this is all a ruse by Liverpool to hoodwink everyone and make a play for Bellingham using stealth, as was seen with the likes of Alisson Becker and Thiago Alcantara. But, more likely is the fact that Real Madrid and Manchester City are more willing to enter into a bidding war and raise the price for Bellingham to go anywhere else, even if his heart might have been in a Liverpool move.
Also potentially impactful on the decision to end the Bellingham pursuit could have been just how the deal was structured and how much Dortmund wanted to receive up front for the player.
There is a scenario where he remains at Dortmund for another season, continues his progression in an environment he is comfortable with and where he gets to play Champions League football. That would whittle a year down of his contract and remove some of the leverage that the German side have at present.
But for Liverpool and FSG there is very little they can offer in terms of an acceptable excuse for being removed from a pursuit that they had been very much part of. The timing of it is also another blow for Reds fans, with the club’s rather miserable season compounded by the failure to land the player who many had pinned their hopes on for some time now.
Ultimately, who the club signs or doesn’t sign is irrelevant if the team wins. If the recruitment this summer delivers results next season and restores the club back among the serious title challengers and the elite of the Champions League then the decision to not go all in on Bellingham right now and focus on the significant surgery that is required will be vindicated.
But after missing out on Tchouameni last summer and Bellingham this summer, fans are right to feel frustrated until they see how the plan during this coming off-season comes to fruition. The stakes have never been higher.
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