Who better to sum up FC Barcelona’s shambolic turmoil than club president Joan Laporta?
“We died of a terminal illness and are now in intensive care,” he said earlier this summer.
“We need to activate the economic means to be able to return to the ward and be discharged.”
With £1.14 billion in debt, football’s biggest institution is collapsing.
And with Barcelona just two days away from starting the league season, the club has been banned from registering five summer deals from La Liga.
Barcelona newcomers Robert Lewandowski and Rafinha not yet registered for La Liga
Yes, you are right. The £1 billion-plus deficit club signed the likes of Bayern Munich’s prolific striker Roberto Lewandowski and former Leeds talisman Rafinha, and trolleyed his way to spend more money than any team in Europe. did a dash.
Fans on social media have compared the club to friends saying they can’t pay back the £20 they borrowed.
As Bayern Munich boss Julian Nagelsmann put it, “The only club that doesn’t have the money but buys all the players they want. It’s crazy, it’s kind of weird.
Andreas Christensen and Frank Kesy signed for Barcelona as free agents this summer
Barcelona spent more money on players than any European club this summer
But enough analogies and Laporta talking in riddles.
How did a club with such a rich history come to the brink of extinction? Is it?
Look back to August 2021.
This image haunts Barcelona fans. Lionel Messi, the club’s all-time greatest asset and the greatest footballer on the planet, wiped away tears as his upper lip trembled with grief and grief when he was forced to part ways with Paris Saint-Germain. rice field.
Four years after his last contract extension in 2017, the club paid Messi over £460m.
The annual salary tripled in 10 years, and the team with the motto methcairn club It’s become like Messi’s club.
Lionel Messi had to say a tearful farewell to his boyhood club last season due to financial difficulties.
Lewandowski is the most famous name to arrive at the Spanish giant in recent years
The Argentinian could complain about the coach and within a few days he would be fired.
Jorge Messi knew the value of his son and negotiated annual wage increases as his agent. The President agreed to each without hesitation. If he disagreed, his term as president would be short-lived.
As such, Messi’s salary skyrocketed, and the pay increase was almost contagious as his teammates demanded the same.
“Plesi, bonus!” shouted the players to then-President Josep Maria Bartomeu on the flight home from the 2015 Champions League triumph.
They were already receiving performance-based bonuses on trades, but Bartomeu bluntly agreed to a raise.
Messi, through no fault of his own, was their greatest asset and parasite.
Barcelona have exhausted the £198m PSG paid Brazilian forward Neymar
Twenty-one years after signing his first contract with Napkin – Jorge felt the offer was too good to be true, so he needed it in writing immediately.
Some argue that if Messi loves his club so much, he should accept a drastic pay cut, but Spain’s employment law forbids anything other than small pay cuts.
Indeed, the club’s decline began long before Messi’s tearful departure. Some point out that Neymar was sold to PSG for £198m in 2017.
They spent money on Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho, both of whom were relative flops. The scouting department failed and the famous academy, La Masia, had stalled until recently.
So when Laporta took over as president for the second time last year, he had to decide what to do next. Either the club’s main squad sells more of his members, thereby, as he put it, “fading into years of irrelevant times”, or invests. team.
Club officials call this a “virtuous cycle”. It’s a gamble where investing in a team and having a ‘brand’ on the pitch makes everything else work economically.
Ousmane Dembele has committed his future to Barcelona after signing a new contract with the club
Xavi took over reign midway through last season as the club finished runners-up in La Liga.
Back to Lewandowski, who scored 344 goals in 375 games for Bayern Munich.
Despite being 33, he has signed the boldest deal since Barcelona sold Neymar, but La Liga’s Financial Fair Play rules prevent him from being enrolled.
In Spain, spending caps are preventive rather than punitive, as seen elsewhere in Europe.
The league claims Barça must raise around £85m before Saturday’s match against Rayo Vallecano to register Lewandowski and company.
The club has survived this summer through economic means, namely by revitalizing Palanca and raising funds.
They sold future television rights, paid per club rather than the entire league in Spain, and sold a quarter of their in-house television company, Barca Studios. The club is effectively mortgaging their future.
Barcelona want to raise money to sign the player by selling Frenkie De Jong to Manchester United
There are also ridiculous stories of Manchester United and Chelsea target Frenkie De Jong, who joined from Ajax in January 2019 but signed a new deal from the former president 18 months ago.
Barca says the deal is illegal because it includes deferred payments. They want him back to his original deal, but on much lower terms, of course.
All this chaos aside, the Camp Nou still has some romance.
Manager Xavi, who was central to Pep Guardiola’s great squad from 2008 to 2012, is doing a great job. Now the club must activate the operation his Salida. This is with Memphis Depay and Samuel Umtiti on the verge of leaving, with Fringe planning to sell his players and free up wages.
Known as FC Palanca or Financial Levers FC in local media. These levers mean the club is expected to be allowed to register some, but not all, new players by Saturday.
Liver may do well for now, but as one club insider put it, “You can eat well today, but you’ll be starving tomorrow.”
.
Comments
Post a Comment