The father of the Stoke City schoolboy at the centre of Liverpool's "tapping-up" row has told the Daily Telegraph that the Merseyside club wanted to make his son's signing as part of the Joe Allen transfer in the opposite direction.
Last month, Liverpool were given a two-year academy transfer ban -- with the second year suspended for a three-year period -- and a £100,000 fine for breaking Premier League rules on youth recruitment.
The Premier League found that staff at Liverpool had spoken to the youngster before they should have done, paying for him and his family to attend a game at Anfield and offering to fund his private school fees -- viewed by the league as a forbidden inducement.
Allen, meanwhile, completed a £13 million switch to Stoke from Liverpool back in July.
The boy's father, who is choosing to remain anonymous, says Liverpool's head of pre-academy recruitment and player retention, Ian Barrigan, informed him of the club's plans.
He said: "Ian Barrigan said to me that Liverpool wanted to make everything part of the Joe Allen deal."
After the move to Liverpool fell through, the boy in question has been unable to play for any other team until Stoke receive compensation of £49,000.
The 13-year-old says he is ready to "beg" Stoke to waive the compensation, while adding that the whole ordeal has left him "sad" and "stressed."
"It's nothing to Stoke, is it -- £49,000 -- to a multi-million pound company?" the boy told the Daily Telegraph.
The parents of the boy have now been left to pay the costs of private education, which Stoke were initially covering before Liverpool allegedly offered to take them on until learning Premier League rules had changed.
"It's seriously had an impact on my health," the 65-year-old father said. "The sleepless nights, the worry that I've had to cope with this. It's had an impact on all the family. If I'm stressed, they're all stressed. I can't afford to pull him out and I can't afford to keep him there."
The Premier League said in a short statement: "We have offered to meet representatives of the family to discuss this matter with a view to finding a constructive outcome for the young person involved."