Barcelona's Philippe Coutinho Switches Nationality To Portuguese

FC Barcelona's midfielder Philippe Coutinho has switched his nationality to Portuguese following a La Liga rule which dictates that clubs cannot have more than three non Europeans in their team playing for them in the leagues.
In other to ease the hassles for the club's manager Ernesto Valverde who has four non Europeans in the team - Arturo Vidal (Chilean), Malcolm and Arthur (Brazilians) - he chose to take up a new nationality and is now carrying Portugal passport which is where his wife's country.
Having done that, Barca manager Valverde would not have to bother about dropping one of the four non Europeans in his team to meet up with Spain's regulations.
Coutinho, 21, moved to Not Camp from Liverpool on a club record transfer of $145 million last summer.