Why Liverpool could not refuse Bayern's £70m Luis Diaz offer
The most prominent purchases will always grab the biggest headlines, but the money Liverpool have recouped in the Fenway Sports Group era will have passed the £1bn mark by the end of the current transfer window.
Even 'Del Boy' would look at some of the trades the club has pulled off over the last 10 years and doff his flat cap.
Luis Diaz's move to Bayern Munich for a fee of £70m was not top of the agenda heading into this summer, but was finally accepted because the German champions moved into offer-that-could-not-be-refused territory.
The popular and hard-working Diaz leaves Anfield having proven the perfect FSG purchase – signed at the peak of his powers for just £37m and sold in his late 20s for nearly double the price.
Bayern have committed to pay handsomely for a winger who will be in his early 30s once his contract ends – and not just in terms of the fee, Diaz's wages will be significantly higher in Bavaria than at Anfield. Had Liverpool been prepared to match the salary with the new contract Diaz and his representatives have been agitating for since 2023, this move would never have happened. The player first asked to leave in 2024, frustrated the pay rise he wanted was not forthcoming as two offers of another Anfield deal were rejected.
FSG football CEO Michael Edwards and his executive team are uncompromising when it comes to establishing a player's value. When crunching the data, they simply believed better options were available for the conservatively estimated £10m-plus-a-year contract the Colombian wanted. And once Bayern's bids kept creeping up, privately Edwards and sporting director Richard Hughes knew the valuation they had in mind to convince them to sell was imminent.
Excellent though he has been, Diaz has gone the same way as Liverpool legends such as Sadio Mane, Roberto Firmino and Georginio Wijnaldum, all of whom hoped for better deals before realising Edwards was unmoved by sentiment.
Mane also moved to Bayern when, aged 30, Liverpool decided they could not keep paying him the same £20m-a-year salary as Mohamed Salah. Their analytics team had to predict which of the dynamic pair was most likely to maintain elite levels well into their 30s.
Mane will always be regarded as one of the greatest of all Liverpool players, but it was obvious within a year the club had made the right call selling him for £35m. Bayern sold Mane to the Saudi Arabia Pro League for a £10m loss 12 months later.
Selling Philippe Coutinho to Barcelona for £142m ranks as the most shrewd business of the modern era by any club, even if it was resisted at the time, but it is the cumulative impact of less high-profile sales which have enabled Liverpool to keep living within their means.
In 2016 they received a combined £18m from Bournemouth for winger Jordon Ibe and full-back Brad Smith; in 2017 they were paid £4m by Hull City for Kevin Stewart (a deal which effectively took Andy Robertson in the opposite direction for just £3.5m), and convinced Crystal Palace to pay £26m for Mamadou Sakho; in 2018, Leicester City paid £12.5m for third-choice keeper Danny Ward, while a year later Danny Ings commanded an £18m fee from Southampton, while academy graduate Ryan Kent left for Rangers for £6.5m. And in 2020, Liverpool received nearly £30m by selling youngsters Rhian Brewster and Ki-Jana Hoever to Sheffield United and Wolverhampton Wanderers, respectively.
These trends have continued over the last five years, maximum value accumulated while some of those who left Liverpool for big fees would unfortunately make a substantial 'where are they now?' feature. The record spending of the summer of 2025 is on course to be matched by a record amount recouped.
As with other outgoings, a more rounded assessment on the merits of selling Diaz will be made in time. An instant assessment will be based on whether his replacement is as good or better. History shows Liverpool get far more right than wrong.
If the business bible The Art of the Deal was ever recommissioned, it would be smarter if the publishers ignored Donald Trump and looked to Edwards, Hughes and FSG president Mike Gordon for their insights.
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