Rafa Benitez: ‘We couldn’t compete financially with Chelsea and Man United’

Rafa Benitez has claimed that Liverpool could not compete financially with Chelsea and Manchester United during his six-year managerial reign at Anfield.

Benitez, who won the Champions League and FA Cup with the club between 2004 and 2010, was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet, when he made the claims about Liverpool’s financial capabilities.

“To replace these kinds of things you need money and say, ‘I’m looking for a player that has this and so and so.’ I was talking to Vidic before he signed for Manchester United, and I knew 100% that he was not coming for us,” Benitez told the panel containing Gary Neville, Roy Keane and Jamie Carragher.

“When I was talking to him, I had to talk through his girlfriend because of English. She said, ‘I like the cities Manchester and Liverpool.’ I knew right away, why else is he talking about Manchester? So, I knew they were making a bigger offer than us.

“Therefore, we didn’t have the money to buy players, and we didn’t have the money to pay players either. The new owners were lucky because we sold Torres for £50 million, then Luis Suarez and Phillipe Coutinho.

“So, they had money to spend around that time. You must spend a lot of money like Chelsea and Manchester City – they just spend.”

Benitez went on to touch upon the difficulties of luring players to the city of Liverpool, with many preferring to live in London or Manchester.

“For Liverpool, it was very difficult because the families of the players preferred to stay in London because of the airport, as well as Manchester,” the 64-year-old said.

“Liverpool was the third choice because of the size of the city, and they like to go shopping in London, I heard one wife talk to another wife!”

“You also cannot pay the salaries. In terms of the city, I love Liverpool but if you go to London there’s the wives, families and all the people. Liverpool were also not winning trophies.

“Manchester was winning trophies; Chelsea was winning trophies and even Arsenal was winning trophies. So, it was very difficult – you have to convince players.”

Benitez arrived at Liverpool in the summer of 2004 with the aim of revitalising a drifting club, not that the conditions he found at Anfield made the task an easy one.

“When I went to Liverpool, they told me that in three years’ time, we want to compete,” the Spaniard said.

“Why we didn’t qualify for the Champions League and finished fifth, because we were in the Champions League already and the motivation of the players was so much against Juventus and Chelsea, and I remember in the league I was pushing but we lost concentration in the first year.

“My budget was £20 million and six years after it was £17 million with [Tom] Hicks and [George] Gillett. I had a business plan with three options – £20 million, £17 million, £15 million, and then a plan with players on loan and those we could buy.

“Other teams could be talking about £60-£70 million. My business plan was very American, you have your squad, the salaries, then you have the players you want to sell and their value, those you want to put out on loan with their salaries, and players you want to buy with their salaries and commissions of agents, then you have a figure.

“The budgets were low because we didn’t have the money. The chairman was telling me that they didn’t have the money to compete against the other teams – Chelsea and Manchester United.

“You have a 75,000 stadium [Manchester United] and we had 44,000, so they had £50 million extra every year, so we have to compete.”

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READ: Rafa Benitez’s 10 most expensive sales at Liverpool & how they fared after

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The financial restrictions under Hicks and Gillett limited Benitez’s ability to sign players for the club, including two Welshmen who would go on to shine in the Premier League.

“Under Tom Hicks and George Gillett, I wanted to sign [Stevan] Jovetic and he was £16 million,” Benitez claimed.

“In my head, I was selling players and had £34 million, but was told that we don’t have money. We went to play against Florentina and lost 2-0 – Jovetic scored both goals. I said that this was the player we wanted to sign but we didn’t have money.

“I wanted to sign Aaron Ramsey when he was playing for Cardiff City, and we made an offer of £1.5 million but Cardiff were playing in the FA Cup and wanted us to wait, but I told them that we had to do it, he was 17 years old.

“When we went again to try and sign him, Arsene Wenger paid £5 million, and we couldn’t sign him.

“Gareth Bale, when he was 17 at Southampton, six months after we were watching him, Tottenham paid £8 million, and we couldn’t compete.”

Rafa Benitez was speaking on the Stick to Football podcast, brought to you by Sky Bet.