Barcelona President Boasts of Cut-Rate Deal for £142m Coutinho

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.”

-Unknown

You know that thing retailers do around the holidays? For example, during that scourge of modernity, Black Friday, when stores selling all manner of gadgets and trinkets actually first raise the prices before “slashing” them to give an illusion of a massive discount? Well it would appear that mighty Barcelona are trying to pull the same trick as they—for some reason—seem to be putting their £142m purchase of Philippe Coutinho’s playing rights through the spin cycle.

A guy named Jordi Mestre has become the first one to give it a go:

“The difference is that there has been a substantial reduction in the cost of this transfer,” in reference to a deal that makes the ex-Liverpool midfielder, for the time being, the second most expensive player in the world.

“There has been a very important reduction, even though we cannot publicly give the figures [you can almost see the creepy uncle “wink, wink”]. We are not going to discuss the numbers.

“The important thing is we have the player here. If I reveal numbers I will be breaking our agreement with Liverpool.”

…Word.

Dude, there’s nothing wrong with spending a lot of money on a player; it’s actually kind of what big clubs are supposed to do. Have ambition > See what you want > Take it.

There aren’t any brownie points for having an efficient coupon game in the big leagues. You can rest assured that pats on the back will not be forthcoming.

Similar to counsel a good percentage of the interested world like to extend to another insecure, but stable genius: the best advice one can give in this time is take one’s W’s with a degree of grace in line with one’s status.