Barcelona claim they only paid €81 million for Luis Suarez

Although Luis Suarez's transfer from Liverpool to Barcelona has consistently been described as a €95-million (£75-million) move, the Catalan club announced on Tuesday that they paid significantly less to acquire the Uruguayan striker.

Mestre, who is Barcelona's vice-president responsible for the sporting area, made the announcement at Tuesday's official presentation of Suarez to the media, claiming that Barcelona paid €14 million (£10 million) less than the player's buy-out clause commanded because of "the skills of those negotiating and Suarez's desire to come" to the Camp Nou.

Of course, with transfers as large as this one, scrutinizing the specific financial details can be an exhausting process, and clubs can announce contradictory fees depending on how they work add-ons into the equation.

For example - and this is strictly speculation - Barcelona could be saying they paid €81 million for Suarez before add-ons so it sounds like a cheaper deal, while Liverpool are actually receiving closer to €95-million when add-ons are included.

However, Barcelona, who are forced to publicly release their finances each year, are known for including add-ons in their announced transfer fees, and following the Neymar debacle that led to firing of former Barcelona president Sandro Rosell, one has to imagine that it isn't in their interest to fabricate any numbers.

For now, anyways, we'll leave it up to speculation as to what Mestre meant by "the skill of those negotiating and Suarez's desire to come" to Barcelona.