Barcelona reportedly tried to sign Luis Diaz in January but Liverpool were further ahead of them in the race to get the deal over the line, according to Joan Laporta.
The Reds moved quickly to sign the winger at the end of January, paying Porto an initial fee of £37m, which could be increased to £49 million.
Jurgen Klopp’s team first hijacked what appeared to be a done deal with Tottenham Hotspur, racing ahead of schedule after years of scouting to get their main summer target early.
Klopp’s decision to go ahead with the deal produced great results, with Diaz picking up an assist on his debut in the 3-1 FA Cup fourth round win over Cardiff before scoring the first of his six goals last season less than a fortnight later.
However, the Colombian has been out for over a month after sustaining a knee injury in the 3-2 defeat at Arsenal at the start of October, but he has been running and could recover for the Carabao Cup showdown with Man City just before Christmas.
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But it wasn’t only Spurs who saw their pursuit of the clever winger go up in smoke, with Laporta revealing in a recent interview with AS that Barcelona were also in discussions after scouting Diaz for a similar length of time – but the president of the Catalan club also admitted that the winger ‘belongs to Liverpool.’
“At that time we had just landed at the club and Liverpool beat us to it,” Laporta said. “We were considering his incorporation, but we were in an economic situation that we had to resolve and reverse. Liverpool was ahead of us, but Luis Diaz is a great player and in that sense he belongs to Liverpool and I can’t talk about this anymore.
“But I recognise that in the past when Luis Diaz went from Porto to Liverpool, we also had a conversation with the representative, but Liverpool was already moving forward.”
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