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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Jake Polden

Liverpool's Darwin Nunez transfer clause details contain Philippe Coutinho oversight

Liverpool's club-record transfer for Darwin Nunez is all but officially confirmed.

The Reds are set to pay a staggering £64.2million up front for the Benfica forward, with Portuguese paper Record reporting that a further £21.5m will be paid to the club over time in easily attainable add-ons.

Liverpool will be forced to splash out an extra £4.3m after Nunez makes 10 appearances for his new club. When he goes on to play a further 50 times, taking his total to 60, the Reds will then fork out another £8.6m. The remaining £8.6m will be triggered by performance-related objectives being reached. All in, the transfer has the potential to reach £85.5m or €100m.

The transfer bears remarkable similarities to Barcelona's big-money deal for Philippe Coutinho back in 2018, given all the bonuses involved.

Barcelona paid Liverpool £142m in total for the Brazilian, with £106m being cashed over up front and then a further £36m in reserve following certain milestones being hit.

One instalment saw Liverpool make £4.4m every time Coutinho played 25 league games for the Catalan club up to 100.

Another clause required Barcelona to shell out £4.4m after qualifying for the Champions League. This was active for two seasons.

The final bonus was to be triggered upon Barcelona winning the Champions League, which wasn't achieved.

Liverpool's club-record transfer for Darwin Nunez is all but officially confirmed (Getty Images)

Like Liverpool, Benfica are set to receive the vast majority of the transfer fee, which is great news for the Portuguese club.

But perhaps a slight oversight on Benfica's part was failing to take a leaf out of Liverpool's book and attempting to include the cheeky clause that the Reds had inserted during the Coutinho negotiations with Barcelona.

As has been widely reported since the 2018 deal, then-Liverpool transfer guru Michael Edwards negotiated a Barcelona premium into the deal to sell Coutinho to the Catalan giants.

Around that time, Liverpool were being routinely picked off by Barcelona, who relieved them of both Javier Mascherano and Luis Suarez in 2010 and 2014 respectively.

The premium meant Barcelona would have to pay Liverpool a whopping £80m on top of any transfer fee for a Red for two whole seasons, which kept them at bay long enough for Jurgen Klopp to build a dynasty.

Liverpool haven't been poaching players from Benfica in the same way Barcelona did to them, but following the capture of Nunez and the recent signing of Luis Diaz, it's quite clear the Reds have an eye on Portugal at the moment.

And should Nunez hit the ground running, in the same way as Diaz, then Klopp and co. may return to snooping around Benfica to see who else they can snap up in the transfer window.

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