Would potential £66million marquee signing be eligble to play for Liverpool in the Champions League?

Liverpool are pushing to complete a deal to sign Luis Diaz, according to reports, but would the Colombian goalscorer be eligible to play for his potential new side in the Champions League?

According to Jornal de Noticias, via Sport Witness, the main issue with signing him this month is that he cannot play in the Champions League due to being cup-tied and so a move to Anfield in January seems less appealing on that count.

Would Luis Diaz be eligible to play for Liverpool in the Champions League?

However, a blog post from UEFA clarifies that each club can register three new players for the knockout stages whether they're new signings, academy players or senior players that were injured or excluded from the original squad list for another reason such as disciplinary reasons.

So, Diaz would be allowed to play for the Reds if he joined in January. In the past, Winter signings have had to watch on from the bench if their new clubs progressed into the latter stages of the tournament but no longer.

Jornal de Noticias claims, via Paisley Gates, that Liverpool have not given up and press to seal the signature of the Colombian before the 11 pm deadline on January 31st in a move that could help Liverpool fire their way back into the Premier League title race.

Liverpool are pushing to sign Diaz and Jurgen Klopp wants to bring him in before the end of the month but will need to pay close to his €80million (£66m) release clause in order to appease Porto.

Why Liverpool will want Diaz to be part of their Champions League squad

Sadio Mane has been struggling this season and while he is almost 30, I believe his issues have had more to do with a lack of suitable cover and so he is required to start every single game of importance.

That wouldn't be the case, however, if Diaz was at the club as he could interchange with the Senegal international and allow Klopp to rest him if he was misfiring or simply in need of a rest.

As you can see from the embedded tweet below, Diaz is capable of hurting the biggest teams around after he decimated Manchester City last season in the Champions League.

He scythed through their defence, breezing past the likes of Kyle Walker, Ruben Dias and Joao Cancelo to make light of their defence.

I maintain that he's not worth his €80m (£66.8m) release clause right now but you never know how that stance might change if the forward gets the chance to work with Klopp for a couple of years.