Only a fraction of fee payable now.

Contrary to all the rubbish printed by the British press regarding a 20 million
pound deal for Alberto Aquilani, Roma have themselves revealed the true extent of the payment structure for the Italian (both to the stock exchange as well as their own official site).

The 20 million EURO transfer fee is broken up into the following:

- 4 cash instalments of
- – 5 million EURO upfront £4.25m
- – 3 million EURO by 4th January 2010 £2.5m
- – 7 million EURO by June 30th 2010 £5.9m
- – 5 million EURO by June 30th 2011. £4.25

Further Add ons include:

- 300,000 EURO for every year Liverpool qualify for the Champions League from 2010/11 to 2014/15 £255k

- 250,000 EURO everytime the player reaches 35 appearancs, 70 appearances, 105 appeances and then 140 appearances. £212k

- 1 million EURO the first time Liverpool either wins the Premier League or Champions League by 30 June 2014. £850k

- 5% of any future transfer fee will be paid to Roma.

Details can be found here (for those fluent in Italian) – http://www.asroma.it/UserFiles/988.pdf

So next time you read any article and it says we paid 20 million Pounds or any other funny amount, reference this article!

That being said, if we’ve only paid 5 million EURO for Aquilani, and got 30 million POUNDS for the Alonso deal right away….is there more money to burn or is it going to our esteemed American owners to re-finance their deal? (Liverpoolfc.co.za)

This is an interesting look into how complex transfer fees have become and makes one wonder if we can indeed afford to bring in one more big name signing or whether that is not financially viable. With only £4.25m payable now clearly there is cash available from the Alonso sale but does Rafa want/need to spend it now or would he better off waiting? Obviously with Aquilani out injured for anything up to two months, there may be a need to bring someone in before the transfer window shuts otherwise we may be thin in the midfield.

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