Brighton and Hove Albion CEO Paul Barber has confessed Moises Caicedo's decision to reject a transfer to Liverpool in favour of joining Chelsea came as a surprise.
Chelsea confirmed the £115m signing of Caicedo on Monday after a tense weekend which began with Liverpool coming out of nowhere to agree a fee of £111m to sign the Ecuador international.
However, Caicedo soon made it clear that he would prefer a move to Stamford Bridge, urging Brighton to reopen negotiations with Chelsea and ultimately sealing the move he was looking for.
Barber admitted to talkSPORT that Caicedo's stance left Brighton in an unexpected and "difficult" situation as they tried to find an outcome which satisfied everyone.
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"Liverpool are a fantastic club, you’d imagine anyone would be running up the M6 for the chance to play at Anfield, but for whatever reason, Moises and his advisors decided London was their preferred destination," he said.
"In that situation we’re in a difficult position; we’ve negotiated a British record deal deal and spent several days working with Liverpool, who were were professional throughout.
"At that point [when Caicedo rejected the move], we’re out of the loop, it is all between the player and Liverpool. When it became clear he isn’t going to be joining Liverpool, we have to go into a different mode, we then have to do it all again, which we did.
"We started working with Chelsea, and we had to protect our own interests which is the player. We did that and now Moises goes on to the next step in his career."
Liverpool and Chelsea have also butted heads over Southampton midfielder Romeo Lavia who, like Caicedo, has opted to move to Stamford Bridge this summer.
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On this week's edition of Talking Transfers, part of the 90min podcast network, Scott Saunders is joined by Toby Cudworth, Graeme Bailey and Sean Walsh to discuss the ever-changing Moises Caicedo saga, Harry Kane's move to Bayern Munich and more!
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This article was originally published on 90min as Moises Caicedo: Brighton CEO admits surprise at Liverpool snub.
