Liverpool's Luis Diaz involved in ongoing transfer dispute as payments case taken to court
Luis Diaz joined Liverpool from Porto back in 2022 and the Portuguese giants have been ordered to pay €103 to Diaz's former club, Junior de Barranquilla, after a ruling from the Court of Arbitration for Sport
Liverpool star Luis Diaz is at the centre of a court case involving two of his former clubs, with Porto ordered to pay Junior de Barranquilla €103 (£86). Diaz came through Junior's academy before leaving to join Porto in 2019.
The deal included a 20 per cent sell on clause and when Diaz joined Liverpool from Porto in 2022 for €45million (£37.5m), Junior were set to earn a significant portion of the fee. Liverpool agreed to pay Porto in instalments, meaning Junior also received their payments in instalments.
However, there was a dispute over the third instalment and a claim was filed with FIFA in 2022 that has gone all the way to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
CAS have ruled that Porto should have paid Junior €1,020,000, but they only ended up paying €1,019,897.
As a result, they have been ordered to pay Junior the outstanding €103 plus five per cent interest dating back to October 1, 2022.
Diaz's future at Liverpool, meanwhile, is up in the air with the winger set to enter the final two years of his contract this summer. His current deal is the same one he signed when he initially joined from Porto, although contract clauses mean his wages have increased.
However, Barcelona have been heavily linked with a move for Diaz and it remains to be seen what the future holds for the forward. He has scored nine Premier League goals in 28 games so far this season as Liverpool close in on the title, although five of those came in his first five appearances.
Reds boss Arne Slot, though, is hoping Diaz will end the season on a high after scoring two goals while away on international duty for Colombia recently. "The mental break comes more from that you go to a different environment with different teammates," Slot said when asked about the international break.
"For that reason, it was maybe a good moment after you lose two games, [because] if you then stay at your club you have to win the next game, but if you go to your national team things are new again and it's the same if you go from the Premier League to the Champions League.
"It's a different league. Maybe that helped as well. I know, for example, the Dutch team, they played Spain [in] two great games. England had also two games, maybe not the nicest ones to play, but they won both of them.
"It's always nice if the players go to a different environment and then come back to us after a good experience. For example, Lucho Diaz had two goals [and] Cody Gakpo had a goal, so a few of our players showed themselves in a very good way again."
Liverpool will be back in action this evening when they host Everton in the Merseyside derby at Anfield, with the Reds looking to get back to winning ways after they were knocked out of the Champions League by Paris Saint-Germain and beaten in the Carabao Cup final by Newcastle.
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