The insolvent club is once again at war with its own players
Just three weeks ago, according to leaks to FC Barcelona’s numerous shameless mouthpieces in the Spanish press, the club was just minutes away from achieving three major summer goals.
First, the club announced the purchase of Spanish star winger Nico Williams from Athletic Club for the amount of his release clause of around €60 million. Second, Barça would announce a hefty cash injection from the delayed completion of a shady investment deal that fell through last summer. Third, once the second step is completed and Barça’s books are in line with Financial Fair Play (FFP) regulations, La Liga would grant the club permission to operate under the so-called ‘1:1 rule’. This would allow Barça to spend money in the same proportion as it has earned through sales or salary cuts, and facilitate the registration of Williams’ salary. And then, damn it, to celebrate its triumph, the club might even be able to bring in Spanish attacker Dani Olmo from RB Leipzig.
At the time of writing, at least 75 percent of it has already been proven to be a sham, which may not be such a bad thing for Barcelona’s business dealings today. The club never really came close to signing Williams, who, in the absence of any remotely credible assurances that Barça could register his contract, would not lightly abandon his hometown club, where he is idolized and gets to play with his brother. The cash injection turned out to be an embarrassing partnership with the deeply disreputable American stadium sales company Aramark, for a paltry sum that accounted for roughly a fifth of the hole in Barcelona’s balance sheet – and a third of the amount the club would have needed to pay Williams’ release clause alone under the 1:1 rule. In this respect, La Liga not has decided to restore the 1:1 rule for the club – because the club has neither closed the hole in its books, nor significantly reduced its wage bills, and has actually not done much more than make a lot of noise.
Not that a return to the 1:1 rule would have made Williams eligible in and of itself. The rule only allows spending in the same proportion to new income or new savings; spend what Williams would cost, the club would have to raise so much. Let’s come back to that in a moment.
While none of this happened, did go out and complete the transfer of Olmo from Leipzig for about €55 million on August 9. And this despite the club not having closed the hole in its books – despite the fact that the club is currently unable to book the salaries of some of the players it already has. The Barcelona opened their La Liga season last Saturday in Valencia without Olmo in the squad. The reason given publicly was that he had not trained enough with his new team to get into match shape. Maybe that’s true, but it’s also true that he wasn’t and still isn’t registered with La Liga.
In this context, the big story at Barça today is that midfielder Ilkay Gündogan agreed to leave the clubOr has decided he wants to leave the clubOr was it said that he has to go. Or Pep Guardiola has decided to bring him back to Manchester City. In short, he is being pushed out so that Olmo can be registered where his salary used to be.
This has become an annual ritual, as predictable as the unveiling of a new kit design: At some point, the club’s management will make an ugly public attempt to poison the ground under one or more players so that they accept an exit on the club’s terms and save the club some money to spend on someone else. This is only surprising because this routine was so abruptly aimed at Gundogan, whom the club had courted for at least two years before signing him on a free transfer last summer. Gundogan was Barça’s best and most reliable player last season.
Before this morning, this year’s season revolved in cruel fashion around 19-year-old Brazilian striker Vitor Roque, a case even more ignominious than that of Gundogan. Barça’s sporting director Deco pushed for Roque’s signing in January, ostensibly to satisfy club president Joan Laporta’s desire for a striking Brazilian player to rival Real Madrid’s signing of Endrick, and against then-coach Xavi’s expressed wishes that the club spend its meagre January transfer budget on a credible defensive midfielder. A raw goalscorer who comes from an Athletico Paranaense style of play very different to Barcelona’s, Roque was a discarded exile at the end of the bench practically from the moment he arrived. This summer, the club gave his shirt number to rising superstar Lamine Yamal and left him unregistered in the league, effectively leaving Roque with the choice of finding a new place to play or putting his entire career in limbo.
The pressure will not end with Gundogan and Roque. This is at least the third summer that the club has tried to sow rumours that Manchester United are planning to break the bank to sign midfielder Frenkie de Jong, who clearly has no interest in leaving and who has been out for months with a serious ankle injury. If the club’s press releases are to be believed, half the clubs in England and Saudi Arabia are desperate to buy striker Raphinha. On Sunday, hilarious, patently ridiculous rumours appeared in Catalan newspapers that Newcastle, flush with Saudi sovereign wealth money, have decided they must have striker Ferran Torres – a day after he was the worst player on the pitch against Valencia.
In almost all cases, this shit doesn’t even work. Last summer, one of the clubs Most frequent destinations so far Ousmane Dembélé eventually left Barcelona for abusing the transfer window – despite the club wanting to keep him and by invoking a contract clause that only gave the club a fraction of his transfer value on the open market. Ansu Fati, Eric García and Pablo Torre all finally caved and went on loan last summer, saving the club money on their salaries – and all three are back this summer, with their transfer values unchanged at best and their place in the squad no more secure than they were a year ago.
If anything, this cruel treatment of players is likely making the club’s business more difficult than it would otherwise be. Consider the case of De Jong, who earns a gigantic salary at Barcelona, largely because he accepted salary deferrals when Barça were in acute danger of defaulting on their salary obligations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His reward for this was the club launching ugly public campaigns against him year after year to try to avoid paying those deferrals, and portraying him in the media as selfish for simply continuing to fulfil the terms of his contract. If you were Fati or Clément Lenglet now, for example – and you were contractually entitled to a salary that no other club in Europe would even remotely offer you – would you agree to defer part of that salary to help the club this summer, knowing how the club turned against De Jong after he did the same?
Barcelona were so poorly positioned financially that they would have welcomed any player leaving, even if the club had made no effort to sign anyone this summer. Moreover, as cash-strapped as they are, Barça are incredibly blessed with young talent from their own ranks and would have had no problem fielding a team capable of challenging for a top-four spot in La Liga. That makes Olmo’s signing – and the way that signing him entailed dealing with Gundogan and Roque – all the more infuriating. Laporta and Deco bought a show dog when they couldn’t even feed the ones they already had.
But there is another reality, one in which Barcelona have not made any new signings this summer, betting that their fans would welcome a promising young team with slightly lower ambitions but plenty of potential, given the club’s dire financial situation. In this reality, Barça would see Gundogan as the ideal experienced professional who could bring some serenity and order to this group, and Roque as a diamond in the rough who could replace Robert Lewandowski – whose contract expires next summer and will reduce the club’s salary bill by €34 million.
On the other hand, this version of Barcelona, managed with foresight and responsibility, is probably not in such big shit to begin with. Joan Laporta and Deco definitely don’t have jobs there. Maybe Barça can afford Dani Olmo!