‘Knife at their throat’ – Club basically forced to sell player to Liverpool, down to poor ‘financial housekeeping’

PSV Eindhoven were all but forced to sell star Cody Gakpo to Liverpool ‘with the knife at their throat’ due to the financial situation at the club.

That’s according to De Telegraaf, relayed by MSN, who say the Dutch side find themselves in a ‘spiral that is difficult to break’.

They explain salary costs at the club ‘ran up considerably’ in recent years alongside the depreciation on transfer fee.

Those costs now sit at €30m and combined with an annual deficit of €10m, the need to add around €40m each year to rectify that problem.

That can be done via extra income, such as qualifying for the Champions League, but if you keep missing out on that then ‘it has to come from transfers’ instead.

That has led to the sale of Gakpo to Liverpool, with that deal set to be worth around €50m once it has been completed and all goals have been met. In other words, the sale was done because of the ‘financial housekeeping’ at the club.

Eindhovens Dagblad journalist Rik Elfrink, meanwhile, adds to that, insisting that the Dutch club are however happy with the deal they have done with Liverpool for their star man.

“It has gone surprisingly fast, although they have been working on it for several weeks,” he told the Done Deal podcast, relayed by Voetbal Primeur.  

“(The deal is) €50m or something above. It was mainly about PSV getting a quick and big first payment.

“(PSV are satisfied) Because of the Antony deal the image was created that this kind of player could easily leave for €70-80m, but that is not entirely realistic.”