Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!

Yeah Barcelona are definitely the geniuses in the Antoine Griezmann transaction. For sure.
 
Mundo Deportivo reports, Barca gets 40m for Griezmann if he plays 50% of games and Atletico will pay 35m of his yearly salary. It's up to Barca if they want to park him there for another season.
Barca saves a total of 130m, it says.

Incredible deal by Barca, even better than 15m for Firpo. What a bunch of morons Aletico are.
........
If it leads them to dominating the league for 2 years or more. They won't look that stupid
 
Mundo Deportivo reports, Barca gets 40m for Griezmann if he plays 50% of games and Atletico will pay 35m of his yearly salary. It's up to Barca if they want to park him there for another season.
Barca saves a total of 130m, it says.

Incredible deal by Barca, even better than 15m for Firpo. What a bunch of morons Aletico are.
We should look to hire the people that negotiated this deal for Barca.

They've done Barcelona a favour, for sure, probably for something in return, eventually.

It's still a bad deal for Barcelona, mainly because of what they paid and how much €€€ they offer Griezmann in the first place! They paid €120m for him, they're going to sell him at a €80m loss if he plays 50% of Atletico games. His salary is more than €35m, (at least €40m maybe even more with all bonuses etc). So Barcelona still paying a bit too I think.

Barcelona are still trying to shift Pjanic....

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/soc...r-miralem-pjanic-and-reduce-wage-bill-sources

Guess they can't even register him as would break the wage cap...
 
Barcelona should play Pjanic instead of Busquets. At least De Jong will be able to move without covering for his DM.

Honestly, pjanic has fallen off a cliff since his last season at Juve. I’m all for getting younger at the CDM position at Barca (and maybe Nico Gonzalez fills that role for us down the line) but Pjanic sadly ain’t it.

But, like United, it’s a little insane how little Barca has done at strengthening the CDM position
 
Honestly, pjanic has fallen off a cliff since his last season at Juve. I’m all for getting younger at the CDM position at Barca (and maybe Nico Gonzalez fills that role for us down the line) but Pjanic sadly ain’t it.

But, like United, it’s a little insane how little Barca has done at strengthening the CDM position

It's not ideal but he still has gas in the tank, I've seen him with his national team in a different environnement , he didn't look as burnt as Busquets.
 
They've done Barcelona a favour, for sure, probably for something in return, eventually.

It's still a bad deal for Barcelona, mainly because of what they paid and how much €€€ they offer Griezmann in the first place! They paid €120m for him, they're going to sell him at a €80m loss if he plays 50% of Atletico games. His salary is more than €35m, (at least €40m maybe even more with all bonuses etc). So Barcelona still paying a bit too I think.

Barcelona are still trying to shift Pjanic....

https://www.espn.co.uk/football/soc...r-miralem-pjanic-and-reduce-wage-bill-sources

Guess they can't even register him as would break the wage cap...

Barcelona came very close to signing Joao Felix. Simeone and Koeman agreed on the transfer, players and representatives as well. The transfer fell at the last minute because Gil Marín was afraid that he would triumph at Barcelona.
Mundo Deportivo says today that Barcelona has about 40 million to sign, did not spend them because signing at the last minute the extra costs were going to be huge. Preferable to spend that money at another time
 
Last edited:
Bartomeu in the summer of 2014 signed Luis Enrique, Luis Suárez, Ter Stegen and Rakitic. It was no luck, he did things right.

Sure enough Suarez and Rakitic left practically for free but they were already 33 and 32 years old, many injuries and gigantic salaries. Barcelona had to eliminate high salaries because the effects caused by covid were already beginning to be important.

Milan and also Inter Milan had difficult years because of the debt and above all because they earned little money.
Most of his income was from TV, commercial and stadium revenues were minimal, not even the stadium was owned.
Barcelona year 2019/20 ( Last year of which we have knowledge of the economic balance sheets) was the club with the highest income in the world.

Football Money League by Deloitte

1. - Barcelona - 715M
4 - M. United - 580M
20 - E. Frankfurt - 174M

Milan don't even appear in the top 20.
No, Barcelona will not become a Milan 2.0

Earnings surely were great... While Barsa still had Messi and the goals, marketing and sales he produced.

What about salaries? I don't have the data here but if I'm not mistaken Barsa's payroll was the highest by 19-20 season by a great margin and one of the key reason's they are in this situation. Doesn't matter if you're the highest earner if you spend all that in your costs and overhead.

You see, I get it. Not all faults were on Bartomeu... He is not liable for Dembelé's last minute miss vs Liverpool on the Champions League semi-finals of 2018-19. He didn't got hiss arse teared up by Bayern on the pitch in 2020 and all the Champions League disastrous exits in the last 5 years... Probably his best "signings" are Ansu Fati and Pedri.

But he is liable for allowing horrible long term re-newals for underperforming players, of including in contracts ridiculous bonuses, of not trying his best to sell players (even veteran world class players like Suarez and Rakitic could have costed $8-10 million), for spending on credit massive amounts of money (him and Barsa's Board), he didn't support La Masia academy, he signed terrible coaches like Valverde and Setién...
 
Earnings surely were great... While Barsa still had Messi and the goals, marketing and sales he produced.

What about salaries? I don't have the data here but if I'm not mistaken Barsa's payroll was the highest by 19-20 season by a great margin and one of the key reason's they are in this situation. Doesn't matter if you're the highest earner if you spend all that in your costs and overhead.

You see, I get it. Not all faults were on Bartomeu... He is not liable for Dembelé's last minute miss vs Liverpool on the Champions League semi-finals of 2018-19. He didn't got hiss arse teared up by Bayern on the pitch in 2020 and all the Champions League disastrous exits in the last 5 years... Probably his best "signings" are Ansu Fati and Pedri.

But he is liable for allowing horrible long term re-newals for underperforming players, of including in contracts ridiculous bonuses, of not trying his best to sell players (even veteran world class players like Suarez and Rakitic could have costed $8-10 million), for spending on credit massive amounts of money (him and Barsa's Board), he didn't support La Masia academy, he signed terrible coaches like Valverde and Setién...

Bartomeu's big mistakes were breaking the salary scale, giving too much power to the players and being cowardly with them, not having ethical and moral principles and signing coaches not suitable for Barcelona

Wages - Barcelona entered a spiral of salary increases, Bartomeu did not know how to say no to the demands of the players for fear of having against the dressing room and the fans. He proved to have no principles and cowardice to do the right thing.
In the renewals of Messi and busquets for example, you put an offer and if they do not accept they can leave and explain it to the fans. Many won't understand it but you did the right thing

Valverde and players - With Valverde Barcelona trained very few days compared to other top teams, each session lasted a short time and the intensity was very low for a professional team... And the happy players training like this, settled in and lost the ambition, attitude and respect that a professional should have.
Eric Abidal denounced this, the players got angry and Bartomeu kicked him out, a disaster for being a coward again.
Imagine being Dembele or Coutinho, coming from teams where you train hard and find yourself with this, logical that they lowered their performance and were injured much more

La Masía - The passage through the club of Laporta was disastrous, in its 7 years Barcelona did not take any relevant player for the first team.
Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Valdes, Busquets, Alba were legacy before Laporta
With the arrival of Rosell first and Bartomeu later there was a change of strategy, it was still betting on players of great quality but also accompanied by the physique of the new times.
Changes in player training take years to get results, and the result is there: Fati, Moriba, Nico, Adama Traore, Eric García, Baldé, Puig, Mingueza, Gavi, Cucurella, Aleña, Kubo, Xavi Simmons, Ilias Akomach... Some stayed, others did not but they are great talents
Barcelona had a great coach in Barcelona b, García Pimienta, he trained the youth first and was a great trainer... And what Laporta did? He fired him and many other formative football coaches who were doing a great job, to put friends of his who supported him in the elections.
Sergi coach of the B when he failed in all the places where he was, Alexanco director of formative football and this one put his son to work also
A disaster and an embarrassment.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: Dargonk
Bartomeu's big mistakes were breaking the salary scale, giving too much power to the players and being cowardly with them, not having ethical and moral principles and signing coaches not suitable for Barcelona

Wages - Barcelona entered a spiral of salary increases, Bartomeu did not know how to say no to the demands of the players for fear of having against the dressing room and the fans. He proved to have no principles and cowardice to do the right thing.
In the renewals of Messi and busquets for example, you put an offer and if they do not accept they can leave and explain it to the fans. Many won't understand it but you did the right thing

Valverde and players - With Valverde Barcelona trained very few days compared to other top teams, each session lasted a short time and the intensity was very low for a professional team... And the happy players training like this, settled in and lost the ambition, attitude and respect that a professional should have.
Eric Abidal denounced this, the players got angry and Bartomeu kicked him out, a disaster for being a coward again.
Imagine being Dembele or Coutinho, coming from teams where you train hard and find yourself with this, logical that they lowered their performance and were injured much more

La Masía - The passage through the club of Laporta was disastrous, in its 7 years Barcelona did not take any relevant player for the first team.
Messi, Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol, Valdes, Busquets, Alba were legacy before Laporta
With the arrival of Rosell first and Bartomeu later there was a change of strategy, it was still betting on players of great quality but also accompanied by the physique of the new times.
Changes in player training take years to get results, and the result is there: Fati, Moriba, Nico, Adama Traore, Eric García, Baldé, Puig, Mingueza, Gavi, Cucurella, Aleña, Kubo, Xavi Simmons, Ilias Akomach... Some stayed, others did not but they are great talents
Barcelona had a great coach in Barcelona b, García Pimienta, he trained the youth first and was a great trainer... And what Laporta did? He fired him and many other formative football coaches who were doing a great job, to put friends of his who supported him in the elections.
Sergi coach of the B when he failed in all the places where he was, Alexanco director of formative football and this one put his son to work also
A disaster and an embarrassment.

A mod needs to like this post, perfectly said
 
Pjanic going to Besiktas on loan for those who mentioned him.

Good news for him, can't not play at all for 6 months.

Pretty certain he couldn't be registered in the la liga if he'd stayed.

Seems Barcelona get €3m off his wages which is better than nothing for guy they couldn't play if they wanted to...
 
Pjanic going to Besiktas on loan for those who mentioned him.

Such a genius move from bartomeu : trick FFP by selling an ok player you occasionally to get an older player with higher wages that doesn't fit in your team. Truly brilliant.
 
My simple theory is that a group of middle men within the club were on massive percentages of each transfer dealing. That is the only obvious thing that makes sense about these mad transfers.
 
My simple theory is that a group of middle men within the club were on massive percentages of each transfer dealing. That is the only obvious thing that makes sense about these mad transfers.

Thing is, the wages are just as bad. I definitely think there's a ton of corruption like you mentioned but it doesn't make any sense why they pay like 2x the market rate for average players
 
So how long until they’re alright again? They’ve done well to shift as many as they could.
 
Sport got their hands on Griezmann's contract, and will make it public over the next week

Apparently the base gross salary was "only" €95M over 5 years, rising every year. They also mention significant bonuses though. Wonder if there's also a signing fee or if they deliberately omit it
 
It basically all boils down to the salary cap that has been introduced. Barca were over the cap by a massive margin even after Messi left. https://www.chaseyoursport.com/Football/La-Liga-Salary-Cap-rule-explained/2867
thanks for the article. I'm still confused tho'....my take of the article is --

Last year the salary cap was 2.33B + 0.61B = 2.94B euros. The article says the cap was reduced "almost" 50%. 50% is .5*2.94 euros = 1.47B, yet they say the cap this year is 2.24B (.61/2.94 = 27%) Those number don't seem to track imo, am I missing something?

Next, with a cap of 2.24B, Barcelona winds up only being able to pay their first team 150BM (typo in the article?) euros. Who are they paying the remaining 2B to? Seems like that's the problem, not the salary cap.

I don't get it at all.
 
thanks for the article. I'm still confused tho'....my take of the article is --

Last year the salary cap was 2.33B + 0.61B = 2.94B euros. The article says the cap was reduced "almost" 50%. 50% is .5*2.94 euros = 1.47B, yet they say the cap this year is 2.24B (.61/2.94 = 27%) Those number don't seem to track imo, am I missing something?

Next, with a cap of 2.24B, Barcelona winds up only being able to pay their first team 150BM (typo in the article?) euros. Who are they paying the remaining 2B to? Seems like that's the problem, not the salary cap.

I don't get it at all.
The wage cap in billion is all la Liga teams combined.
 
I will try to explain the financial fair play that is used in Spain. I see articles that instead of clarifying things even complicate them more.

LaLiga imposes the maximum that each team can spend on salary bill (wage+amortization)

If a club goes over the limit then they cannot register new players, whether they are signed from other clubs, on loan or if a player of yours ended his contract and you have renewed it (Messi)

What to do? Lower the wage bill or raise income with sponsorship contracts or capital increase.

Lower the wage bill - Here for teams to have a little margin there are 2 rules:
1/4 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 4 euros released
1/2 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 2 released if the money released comes from a player who represents more than 5% of the total wage bill (Griezzman)

Barcelona could register players even if they were above the limit of the salary bill, they would simply continue to have those rules until they returned within the limits set by the Spanish league.

Why was Messi's salary reduced by only 50% and no more?
LaLiga when a team registers a new contract of any player, for financial fair play the reduction of their previous contract can not be more than 50%.
For example, Barcelona signs a player who was earning 10 million the previous year , Barcelona can pay him 1 million but for LaLiga it counts 5 million because they do not believe that big reduction.
This rule is made so that there are no payments outside of football to the players and manipulate the fair play especially in the most modest teams.
For that reason, even if Barcelona paid 1 million a year to Messi LaLiga will count it as 50% of the previous contract.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Dargonk
I will try to explain the financial fair play that is used in Spain. I see articles that instead of clarifying things even complicate them more.

LaLiga imposes the maximum that each team can spend on salary bill (wage+amortization)

If a club goes over the limit then they cannot register new players, whether they are signed from other clubs, on loan or if a player of yours ended his contract and you have renewed it (Messi)

What to do?
Lower the wage bill or raise income with sponsorship contracts or capital increase.

Lower the wage bill - Here for teams to have a little margin there are 2 rules:
1/4 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 4 euros released
1/2 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 2 released if the money released comes from a player who represents more than 5% of the total wage bill (Griezzman)

Barcelona could register players even if they were above the limit of the salary bill, they would simply continue to have those rules until they returned within the limits set by the Spanish league.

Why was Messi's salary reduced by only 50% and no more?
LaLiga when a team registers a new contract of any player, for financial fair play the reduction of their previous contract can not be more than 50%.
For example, Barcelona signs a player who was earning 10 million the previous year , Barcelona can pay him 1 million but for LaLiga it counts 5 million because they do not believe that big reduction.
This rule is made so that there are no payments outside of football to the players and manipulate the fair play especially in the most modest teams.
For that reason, even if Barcelona paid 1 million a year to Messi LaLiga will count it as 50% of the previous contract.
Thanks for this post. Answers a lot of the questions I had about their summer.
 
Biggest transfer regret ever?

He'll be begging to join PSG at the season's end
Definitely regrets to be there. However I am not sure what to think of the actual quote. Why arrive before official training and do some stuff on your own? That sounds like there is not enough planned for the training sessions at City, and I can't believe that. Just think of Bayern München, where the players forced Ancelotti out because they thought the training intensity was too low compared to Guardiola who was there before him. So something is not right here for sure, I just don't know what.

But to be honest I don't care, I despise City's ownership, dislike Guardiola and don't care about Barca, I just have fun laughing at them :devil:
 
I will try to explain the financial fair play that is used in Spain. I see articles that instead of clarifying things even complicate them more.

LaLiga imposes the maximum that each team can spend on salary bill (wage+amortization)

If a club goes over the limit then they cannot register new players, whether they are signed from other clubs, on loan or if a player of yours ended his contract and you have renewed it (Messi)

What to do?
Lower the wage bill or raise income with sponsorship contracts or capital increase.

Lower the wage bill - Here for teams to have a little margin there are 2 rules:
1/4 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 4 euros released
1/2 - Teams can spend 1 euro for every 2 released if the money released comes from a player who represents more than 5% of the total wage bill (Griezzman)

Barcelona could register players even if they were above the limit of the salary bill, they would simply continue to have those rules until they returned within the limits set by the Spanish league.

Why was Messi's salary reduced by only 50% and no more?
LaLiga when a team registers a new contract of any player, for financial fair play the reduction of their previous contract can not be more than 50%.
For example, Barcelona signs a player who was earning 10 million the previous year , Barcelona can pay him 1 million but for LaLiga it counts 5 million because they do not believe that big reduction.
This rule is made so that there are no payments outside of football to the players and manipulate the fair play especially in the most modest teams.
For that reason, even if Barcelona paid 1 million a year to Messi LaLiga will count it as 50% of the previous contract.

Scouts get on it.
 
Definitely regrets to be there. However I am not sure what to think of the actual quote. Why arrive before official training and do some stuff on your own? That sounds like there is not enough planned for the training sessions at City, and I can't believe that. Just think of Bayern München, where the players forced Ancelotti out because they thought the training intensity was too low compared to Guardiola who was there before him. So something is not right here for sure, I just don't know what.

But to be honest I don't care, I despise City's ownership, dislike Guardiola and don't care about Barca, I just have fun laughing at them :devil:

A lot of players come earlier than the planned team practice to work individually, other stay late (to work on free kicks, crosses etc.). There's nothing strange about that.
 
A lot of players come earlier than the planned team practice to work individually, other stay late (to work on free kicks, crosses etc.). There's nothing strange about that.
Individual training is a thing, that is not what I wonder about. But usually it is embedded in the plan of the staff who should train what. What Aguero says sounds like he just did it on his own, and that is what I am wondering about
 
Individual training is a thing, that is not what I wonder about. But usually it is embedded in the plan of the staff who should train what. What Aguero says sounds like he just did it on his own, and that is what I am wondering about

If you come earlier you will often not have staff members available, teams tend to reserve that time for players in rehab. That's why many players have their own trainers and physio and why being inhured isn't a great experience since your schedule doesn't match with the rest of the team, it's a lonely experience.
 
Individual training is a thing, that is not what I wonder about. But usually it is embedded in the plan of the staff who should train what. What Aguero says sounds like he just did it on his own, and that is what I am wondering about
Players can decide to more practice on their own without input from the coaching staff.

They've loads of free time outside of practice and matches anyway.

Cantona used to work on his setpieces after practice and it caught on with the rest of the first team and they joined in for extra training on their own.

It all depends on what the players want, and Aguero is clearly saying the players culture at Barcelona is very different from the one at Man City.
 
Mundo Deportivo reports, Barca gets 40m for Griezmann if he plays 50% of games and Atletico will pay 35m of his yearly salary. It's up to Barca if they want to park him there for another season.
Barca saves a total of 130m, it says.

Incredible deal by Barca, even better than 15m for Firpo. What a bunch of morons Aletico are.
We should look to hire the people that negotiated this deal for Barca.

Barcelona gave Atletico €86m, Suarez, the la liga title and Antoine Griezmann in exchange for…

Antoine Griezmann.

Yes, outstanding business! Let‘s hire the guy that made that deal
 
Barcelona gave Atletico €86m, Suarez, the la liga title and Antoine Griezmann in exchange for…

Antoine Griezmann.

Yes, outstanding business! Let‘s hire the guy that made that deal
Yeah Barcelona are definitely the geniuses in the Antoine Griezmann transaction. For sure.

Sunken cost fallacy. The previous deal being a loss has no bearing on how good the next deal is.
 
Mundo Deportivo reports, Barca gets 40m for Griezmann if he plays 50% of games and Atletico will pay 35m of his yearly salary. It's up to Barca if they want to park him there for another season.
Barca saves a total of 130m, it says.

Incredible deal by Barca, even better than 15m for Firpo. What a bunch of morons Aletico are.
We should look to hire the people that negotiated this deal for Barca.
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
Bartomeu in the summer of 2014 signed Luis Enrique, Luis Suárez, Ter Stegen and Rakitic. It was no luck, he did things right.

Sure enough Suarez and Rakitic left practically for free but they were already 33 and 32 years old, many injuries and gigantic salaries. Barcelona had to eliminate high salaries because the effects caused by covid were already beginning to be important.

Milan and also Inter Milan had difficult years because of the debt and above all because they earned little money.
Most of his income was from TV, commercial and stadium revenues were minimal, not even the stadium was owned.
Barcelona year 2019/20 ( Last year of which we have knowledge of the economic balance sheets) was the club with the highest income in the world.

Football Money League by Deloitte

1. - Barcelona - 715M
4 - M. United - 580M
20 - E. Frankfurt - 174M

Milan don't even appear in the top 20.
No, Barcelona will not become a Milan 2.0
You're forgetting that number for Barcelona is artifically inflated by virtue of the shirt deal... Also, most clubs dont have 1.5 billion in debt and losing 400-500 million euro's per season. That is insane losses by any metric and not something you'll merely pay off after a few years...
 
Sunken cost fallacy. The previous deal being a loss has no bearing on how good the next deal is.

The issue is that Griezmann is a very good football player. A very good football player, who is still quality, and who played his best football at Atletico Madrid, not that long ago. And they have now brought him back, for a relatively small fee, after having improved their squad.

You can argue that it's a good deal for Barcelona since he didn't seem to fit there and they needed some money. But to say that Atletico are "morons" for taking back their world class player, who they didn't want to sell in the first place, is completely delusional. They have clearly benefitted more from this entire situation than Barcelona, at every step of the process.
 
The issue is that Griezmann is a very good football player. A very good football player, who is still quality, and who played his best football at Atletico Madrid, not that long ago. And they have now brought him back, for a relatively small fee, after having improved their squad.

You can argue that it's a good deal for Barcelona since he didn't seem to fit there and they needed some money. But to say that Atletico are "morons" for taking back their world class player, who they didn't want to sell in the first place, is completely delusional. They have clearly benefitted more from this entire situation than Barcelona, at every step of the process.

I wouldn’t belittle Atletico for taking him back but I give huge props to Laporta for
Getting his contract off the books when no other team wanted to take on that insane contract. I think it’s a deal that will greatly benefit both sides