Friday, January 28, 2022 at 08:53• Daniel Cabot Kerkdijk • Last update: 08:59

Liverpool seems to win the battle for Luis Díaz’s signature, reports include The Athletic and GOAL Friday morning. According to the latest reports, the English top club is well on its way to complete the arrival of the FC Porto attacker and the Colombia national team before the end of the winter transfer market, next Monday. Liverpool thus seems to trump rival Tottenham Hotspur.

Díaz has long been linked with a move to the Premier League. The 25-year-old wing attacker has a transfer clause of eighty million euros, but according to the latest reports from England, Liverpool and FC Porto are about to reach an agreement on a transfer fee of sixty million euros, including variables. That is considerably less than the transfer clause, but FC Porto is forced to tack.

UEFA announced at the beginning of December that the Portuguese top club, along with Sporting Portugal, is one of the eight clubs that have violated the Financial Fair Play rules. In addition to a fine of 300,000 euros, FC Porto must ensure that the finances are in order before January 31, 2022. If the finances are still not in order after that deadline, UEFA will proceed with a European exclusion. A transfer from Díaz to Liverpool therefore offers a solution.

In any case, FC Porto seems to be taking a big win over Díaz (a total of 125 games, good for 41 goals and 20 assists), as he was taken over from Colombian Junior FC in 2019 for seven million euros. Díaz is this season an important player in coach Sérgio Conceição’s team, which leads the Portuguese Primeira Liga and faces Lazio in the intermediate round of the Europa League after the winter.

With the arrival of Diaz, who became joint top scorer in the Copa America last year, Liverpool is responding to the uncertainty about the future of Roberto Firmino, Sadio Mane and Mohamed Salah. The trio will turn thirty later this year and will be on the payroll of the Merseyside club for another year and a half. The contract negotiations have not yet led to a longer cooperation. With Portuguese international Diogo Jota, Liverpool previously brought in a fully-fledged alternative.