According to Fiorentina president Andrea Della Valle, the Italian club have today completed the signing of midfielder Alberto Aquilani for a fee of approximately £5.5M. However, in order to meet Aquilani's wage demands, Liverpool will pay a portion of the player's salary for his first two seasons at Fiorentina. After paying £17M for him in 2009 only to spend most of the following season nursing him back to full health before loaning him back to Italy the following two summers but continuing to pay a portion of his wages, if Liverpool are lucky what's left of the fee may allow the club to break even on expenditures on Aquilani beyond his initial transfer.
Aquilani recently claimed to have been pushed out of Liverpool the past two summers, but no matter any claims by the player that he wanted to earn a spot and prove his worth under new manager Brendan Rodgers, it is clear that once again the club and manager—the third in a row at Liverpool—didn't feel his potential contribution warranted the salary he was on. Given Liverpool will pay a portion of his wages for the next two years at Fiorentina, in fact, speaks to just how little the English club thought of him, in stark contrast to the hopes many fans tied to a player who seemed to grow more important to any future success the longer he was gone.
No matter what he could or might have done for Liverpool had he been given the chance, the Aquilani saga is today finally over. It may not be an especially satisfying ending for Liverpool, but at least it is an ending. After the events of the past two summers and seasons filled with speculation over the player's eventual future, that will have to do.