Emre Can’s Liverpool Contract Impasse “Not About Money”

Emre Can is likely to sign for Juventus in a month when the transfer window opens and the midfielder, who has six months to run on his Liverpool deal, is free to sign a pre-contract agreement with any other club. Most seem to agree this is a near certainty, including members of the German national team’s coaching staff.

The consensus is further that the issue that has stopped Can signing a new Liverpool contract isn’t wages, it’s the club’s unwillingness to agree a release clause that would let the young German walk on the cheap were he not getting enough minutes. And today, Can himself appears to have confirmed that’s in fact the case.

“It is not about money, that’s all I can say,” Can said when pressed on the issue by The Liverpool Echo, who had asked if it was differences over a release clause that had stopped a deal getting done. “I could sign [a pre-contract agreement in January], but tomorrow I could also sign for Liverpool. We’ll see.”

None of that is new information for those who have been tracking Can’s situation, but it helps to confirm what people with ties to the club have been hinting at in recent months—that money isn’t an issue, with Liverpool willing to offer Can more than £100k per week, but that the player’s desire for a release clause is.

Not only that, but the suggestion has been that Can wants a release clause that would make him affordable for clubs on the continent. That would also be a release clause Liverpool would consider under value, allowing a club like Bayern Munich, Barcelona, or Juventus to poach Can on the cheap down the road.

And the club believe that giving Can an undervalued release clause, beyond allowing the bigger continental clubs to potentially poach him on the cheap, would set a dangerous precedent in future negotiations with other players. This, more than anything, is why the club have resisted giving the player one so far.

Still, until Can signs a pre-contract with another club, there’s a chance he will re-sign with Liverpool, as the player himself was quick to point out. And in the meantime, Can says he’s trying to ignore any contract talk and instead to keep his focus fully and completely on football and Liverpool’s busy holiday fixture list.

“Why do you ask me this?” Can added. “Really, I concentrate on this season and let my agent handle all the rest.”