‘I thought I was in Liverpool Champions League final squad – until £200k error’

A former Liverpool star was left £200,000 out of pocket after a blunder saw him mistakenly included in their Champions League final squad.

Stephen Warnock, who had played four times in the Reds’ journey to the 2005 Istanbul final, wasn’t sure if he’d been selected to face AC Milan. Now retired at 42, the ex-left-back discovered his fate two days before the game ahead of their trip to Turkey.

“I remember running in after the last training session and thinking, ‘please be in’,” he recalled on the Undr The Cosh podcast. He was shocked to see his name among the 18 listed, exclaiming “f***ing hell”.

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However, what followed was an “absolute disgrace” from Benitez, who then made a U-turn. Warnock detailed: “I rang the family and told them to get the plane tickets booked.

“I was at home getting everything ready, then my phone goes and it’s Pako Ayestaran, who was the number two at the time. He goes, ‘we’ve make a mistake with the squad, you’re not in it’. I was like ‘what?'”

As a lifelong Liverpool supporter, IT was a tough pill for him to swallow – not to mention the financial blow, reports the Mirror. “It shouldn’t come into it but it did,” he added.

“It was one of the biggest games of football’s year but our bonus was massive either way. It was £100k to lose it and £200k to win it, and I was thinking f***ing hell, that’s a massive amount of money, because I weren’t on that much money at the time.

“The other part of that was me thinking ‘f***ing hell that’s a nice lovely bonus that either way’. You’re a young lad, I’ve come from thinking last year thinking I’m gonna be in the Championship with Coventry being on decent-ish money but nowhere near that sum of money.”

Liverpool of course managed to beat Milan on penalties after an incredible comeback from three goals down, which meant Warnock missed out on the £200k payday most of his team-mates received.

“[Steven] Gerrard came up to me after the game and said ‘we’ll make sure you get your money’. I’ve still not seen it. Like why say it,” he added.

This saga, which also saw him miss the trophy parade after being moved onto a separate flight home, marked the beginning of the end for his career with the Reds. He had reached a point of no return with Benitez and eventually left Merseyside in January 2007 to join Blackburn Rovers.