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A report out of Germany has linked Bayern Münich and Man City to a swap deal involving Leroy Sané and David Alaba.

It's a deal that makes sense on paper. Bayern has coveted Sane forever, with the two teams closing in on a deal last summer before Sané sustained a knee injury. City need to overhaul their fullback spots, and it doesn't get much better than Alaba, a player who has worked with Pep Guardiola before, ranks as one of the best left-backs in the game, and is comfortable lining up in pretty much any spot on the pitch: this season he's split time between left-back and centre-back, while playing as an attacking midfielder for his national team.

Rather than trading back mega-money bids, why not just swap the players, with a little financial kicker tacked-on to one side?

The report out of Germany suggests it's Alaba who will nix the potential deal, preferring to move to Spain rather than England. But the concept itself got me thinking: Are swap deals the future of transfers?

Swaps, or trades, are something we see all over American sports. The difference, of course, is the set-up of the league structures: no transfers; a free agency system; Collective Bargaining Agreements. We would never see a full trade system in football, as fun as it might be. But we could see an uptick in swap deals given the shifting plates that are currently holding the football system in place.

The gap between the haves and the have-nots has never been greater. Champions League money dwarfs everything. And Europe's elite have done a marvelous job of crossing the drawbridge and then pulling it up behind them.

The only downside? When they want to offload players, either because they're on a bloated contract or because they want to re-invigorate their squad, it's becoming harder and harder to find suitors who can afford to take on the mind-bending contracts.

We've seen it with signing after signing. Not even the Chinese Super League could serve as an escape for Gareth Bale or Alexis Sanchez. The pair still wanted to play at a decent level in one of Europe's top-five leagues, but their level had dipped below the elite of the elite, the only clubs with the resources needed to buy and then pay the ageing stars.

Swap deals offer a kind of get-out. Clubs are able to recoup some kind of value, exchanging one bad contract for a contract and player that might better fit their playing style or timeline.

Add FFP to the mix and it makes even more sense. Let Gareth Bale walk, and it's hard to replace his ability -- however much it's waning -- without shelling out all kinds of money. But if Bale is walking for free, or close to it, in order for Madrid to dump his contract, then they lack the funds needed to re-invest. Well, they have the money, but they don't have the FFP flexibility.

We've seen one workaround: Loans with all sorts of options to buy, essentially referring payments and kicking the FFP can down the road. But swap deals could offer a welcome alternative. Clubs would still have to pay wages, but using a player as a go-between eases some of the burden of a massive transfer fee and alleviates FFP concerns.

In recent years, we've seen two big swap deals:

- Inter Milan and Barcelona swapping Zlatan Ibrahimovic for Samuel Eto'o.

- Manchester United and Arsenal swapping Henrikh Mkhitaryan for Alex Sanchez

The second deal was an unmitigated flop for both sides. At the time, Arsenal were trying to save face after learning their best player wanted to leave for a division rival. United, who were plunging £400k a week into the Sanchez deal, needed to get Mkhitaryan's inflated salary off the books.

The Ibrahimovic-Eto'o deal was a little ahead of its time. Eto'o had fallen out with then Barcelona coach Guardiola. Guardiola, for his part, was looking to rid the squad of Eto'o but wanted to make sure he secured value in return. He was also looking for a change-up piece, someone who would bring a degree of chaos to Barca's tippy-tappy style. In Zlatan, he nailed the brief.

It didn't work out for Ibrahimovic in Catalonia, but boy did it work for Eto'o in Milan. Under José Mourinho, he became a key part of Inter's infamous treble team.

And though the deal hurt Barcelona (who added in a €46 million make-weight to the deal), on the pitch and off it, they were still able to recover much of the value of the deal when they sold Ibrahimovic to AC Milan for €35 million.

There have been some other interesting swap deals dotted around football history, most of which involved Italian football, where, for a time, co-owning players were allowed and deals involving multiple "prospects" plus cash being traded for a star was not unusual: Diego Milito and Thiago Motta to Inter from Genoa for a bunch of youngsters; Giampaolo Pazzini (Inter Milan) for Antonio Cassano (AC Milan); Ashley Cole (Arsenal) for Williams Gallas (Chelsea); Ricardo Quaresma (Barcelona) for Deco (Porto); Nemanja Matic (Chelsea) for David Luiz (Benfica).

Could it be a tactic Liverpool looks to as Michael Edwards tries to improve and evolve the squad while also looking to balance the books?

One option: dangling Naby Keita for potential swap deals.

Liverpool have a tricky Keita decision to make whenever the transfer window opens. Selling Keita at a discount rate would be a bad look for all involved, and is likely a non-starter. But will Jürgen Klopp trust him heading into next season given his injury record, particularly with Adam Lallana, who has provided cover when Keita has missed time, set to leave the club?

Bruno Fernandez has played more Premier League football this season than Keita. When healthy, Keita is an output monster. He offers something no other Liverpool midfielder can, something few other midfielders in world football can provide a team. But we've seen it so scarcely that's it's fair to wonder if it will ever click for the midfielder at Anfield.

Liverpool might not have the budget required to land two of their reported top targets this summer -- Timo Werner, Jadon Sancho, and Kai Havertz -- but could Keita be used as a make-weight in one of the deals? Would RB Leipzig prefer Liverpool paid Werner's release clause out-right or that they sent Keita plus £10-20 million in exchange for the forward?

What about Dortmund? They're in a power position as it relates to a potential Sancho deal. Manchester United, Chelsea, Real Madrid, and Liverpool are all keen. That's going to drive the price up and up and up. But would Dortmund prefer £90 million flat from United or £50 million plus Keita from Liverpool? Dortmund would have to re-invest the money anyway, with teams knowing full-well they're flush with cash. So, why not land the player who's already been a super, duper star in the Bundesliga, provided he's healthy?

Adding Keita into the deal could give Dortmund the chance to double-dip on Sancho: bring in £50-60 million in one lump, and hope that Keita can keep healthy, allowing them to sell him in 18-months or so for an enormous price.

Moving on from Keita doesn't seem to be in Liverpool's plans. But if Klopp and co. want to add two of their biggest summer targets. And if the team has intel that Keita's injury issues will sustain, it makes sense to try to use the leverage of his Bundesliga reputation as a bargaining chip for potential swap deals.