Liverpool may be one of the biggest teams in the world – both based on current status and historical performance – but Rafa Benitez has revealed the Reds struggled to sign players during his time as a player.
Benitez is one of the Reds’ most successful managers of recent times, having been the driving force behind their fairytale Champions League triumph over AC Milan in 2005 and their FA Cup triumph in 2006.
Although he later returned to the blue half of Merseyside, Benitez remains a legend at Anfield, having left the club in 2010 after six years at the helm.
In the latest episode of the Stick To Football Podcast, Benitez is our guest and talks about his time at the club. He talks about the highs and lows of his time with the Reds.
Fans may be surprised to learn that during his time at the club, Liverpool were unable to compete financially with the likes of Arsenal and Tottenham when it came to signing new players.
Rafael Benitez has revealed Liverpool cannot compete financially with their rivals
Aaron Ramsey was already on the Reds’ radar before he moved from his boyhood club Cardiff to Arsenal
Gareth Bale was monitored by Liverpool at Southampton before moving to Tottenham
‘I wanted to sign under Tom Hicks and George Gillett [Stevan] Jovetić and he was £16 million,’ Benitez began speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Betting.
‘In my head I was selling players and I had £34m, but they said we had no money. We went to play Fiorentina and lost 2-0 – Jovetic scored both goals. I said this was the player we wanted to sign, but we had no money.
‘I wanted to sign Aaron Ramsey when he was at Cardiff City, and we made a bid of £1.5m, but Cardiff were in the FA Cup and wanted us to wait, but I told them we had to do it, he was 17 years old. When we tried to sign him again, Arsene Wenger paid £5m, and we couldn’t sign him.
‘When Gareth Bale was 17 at Southampton, six months after we started watching him, Tottenham paid £8m and we couldn’t compete.’
Both Bale and Ramsey would go on to become Premier League stars at their respective clubs and would also excel for Wales on the international stage in Chris Coleman’s famous Euro 2016 squad.
Bale would eventually leave Tottenham for Real Madrid in a record deal worth £86 million, making Spurs a tidy profit of £78 million.
Ramsey joined Juventus from Arsenal in 2019 after 11 years and 262 Premier League games as one of the Gunners’ finest midfielders of the last Wenger era.
Benitez also revealed that he was in talks with Nemanja Vidic before the Man United legend signed for the Red Devils, but that he was aware early on that he could not compete with the financial might of Liverpool’s big rivals.
Nemanja Vidic was in talks with Benitez before he decided to sign for Man United
Liverpool could raise money for their new owners after Fernando Torres was sold to Chelsea for £50m
‘I knew they were making a bigger offer than us, so we didn’t have the money to buy players, and we didn’t have the money to pay players.
‘The new owners were lucky because we sold Torres for £50m, and then Luis Suarez and Philippe Coutinho. So they had money to spend at that time. You have to spend a lot of money, like Chelsea and Manchester City – they just spend.
‘For Liverpool it was very difficult because the players’ families preferred to stay in London because of the airport, and also in Manchester. Liverpool was the third choice because of the size of the city, and they like to go shopping in London, I heard one woman talking to another woman!
“You can’t pay the salaries either. As for the city, I love Liverpool, but when you go to London, there are the women, the families, all the people. Liverpool didn’t win any trophies either. Manchester won trophies; Chelsea won trophies, even Arsenal won trophies. So it was very difficult – you have to convince players.”
Rafa Benitez spoke on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Betting.