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Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
- Thread starter davidmichael
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That looks like a man ready to throw his toys out of the pram... and stay put. I know I would.
If he wasn't such a classy player then I would totally agree with that mindset
Being treated like shit trumps sandy beaches any day of the week.
Murtough - Private jet for Mikky, welcoming committee, basket of fruit, 100k new Insta followers. In that order. Done dealio.
I just don't understand. I mean, I can relate to love playing for a club like Barca with its genetic link to Cruyffian offensive football and the enjoyable living conditions of its city and the Mediterranean culture/region as a whole.
But why would you subject yourself to the kind of shenanigans that the Laporte regime is currently pulling without concluding that its toxic environment and political games are just too much to accept.
Have some dignity and move away from the trainweck at this club.
But why would you subject yourself to the kind of shenanigans that the Laporte regime is currently pulling without concluding that its toxic environment and political games are just too much to accept.
Have some dignity and move away from the trainweck at this club.
To play devil's advocate, here's a completely made-up theory with a positive spin if anyone feels like all the evidence points to him not joining us anymore...
We have had a fee agreed with Barca for what seems like forever, and that was following protracted negotiations, so we've been in this for at least, what, 3 or 4 months now? FDJ will have known about Barca's desire to move him on since before then but someone must have encouraged us to go in for him so early. Barca must have known about their stratospheric transfer plans and what needed to happen to their wage bill to make it possible, hence the FDJ sale in the first place.
BUT, FDJ's contract has a clause in it which says Barca must pay up all deferred salary if he leaves... I speculated about this in a previous post and there is no reason not to believe that when his contract was renegotiated, rather than screw his client, FDJ's agent has actually been incredibly smart and now they have Barca over a barrel.
Barca realise this and try to negotiate out of some or all of the payment in good faith... no dice. Barca then begin to realise the shit position they have gotten themselves into and throw some other names out to the media to try and get United to persuade FDJ on their behalf, probably by tempting him with more money... no dice, because we have been in touch with FDJ's camp throughout and know that if he can get out of Barca with his owed money, he'll come to us. Of all the shit Barca throw in the press, the Chelsea stories stick and do generate some actual curiosity from them... Cue FDJ's agent saying they haven't and won't agree to anything with anyone until Barca sort the deferred money. Cue Chelsea saying they'll only bid if FDJ gives them some kind of sign he wants to leave, suggesting they haven't had one yet. Cue United saying we're still confident. And remember, we have bid... but supposedly without the kind of assurances that Chelsea want before getting formally involved? Riiiight. We have made some questionable decisions in the past but we're not that inept.
Barca are panicking now... their levers have actually backfired and they can't register new signings... a meltdown of epic proportions is brewing. So what do Barca do? They ramp up the pressure on United with a swathe of 'FDJ prefers Chelsea' stories to try and get us to move before they gazump us or whatever. They even include mentions of Chelsea being willing to pay the deferred wages as if to say, 'come on guys, another club will do it if you don't'. No. Dice. In fact, we are so content that we start putting out 'oh, okay, no FDJ... Rabiot then' stories to really put the shit up Barca. We know where we stand with FDJ so we can afford to make Barca sweat as much as possible.
It is really starting to hit the fan in Barca's top office. Laporta only has one card left to play... to publicly say they don't believe they need to honour the contract. They want out, and they want out badly for it have gotten to this. And the reason they want out so badly? Because they have finally been caught out. A player has found a single club he wants, at a time when Barca wanted him gone anyway, and he is using that, with the help of the buying club, to make sure he gets his money.
To make matters worse, Barca have so many players on deferred wages and they saw the precedent it would set if they just paid FDJ at the start of all this. If they had done that, Ter Stegen, Depay and any other player they have done this to could expect to sit on their massive contract or get a huge pay out on leaving. It would be catastrophic for their short-term finances... they could be making losses of 10s of millions on each transfer out. Players could literally hold the club to ransom over the next few years.
Whether or not FDJ makes it to United remains to be seen but there is so much going on, so many twists and turns, that you can write a pretty reasonable summary with almost any outcome you want at the moment. My only real belief in this happening still comes from the fact that United just cannot be so poor as to have gotten involved, and stayed involved throughout, without some kind of input from FDJ's side.
Barca have gotten themselves into a terrible situation though, and the only way out of it is through the courts I think. Only they and the agents will know if the contracts will hold up under scrutiny or whether this is more brinkmanship and desperate measures but the language Barca is using now (criminality by 'all' involved) suggests to me that they are on the wrong end of a nasty clause in FDJ's contract.
We have had a fee agreed with Barca for what seems like forever, and that was following protracted negotiations, so we've been in this for at least, what, 3 or 4 months now? FDJ will have known about Barca's desire to move him on since before then but someone must have encouraged us to go in for him so early. Barca must have known about their stratospheric transfer plans and what needed to happen to their wage bill to make it possible, hence the FDJ sale in the first place.
BUT, FDJ's contract has a clause in it which says Barca must pay up all deferred salary if he leaves... I speculated about this in a previous post and there is no reason not to believe that when his contract was renegotiated, rather than screw his client, FDJ's agent has actually been incredibly smart and now they have Barca over a barrel.
Barca realise this and try to negotiate out of some or all of the payment in good faith... no dice. Barca then begin to realise the shit position they have gotten themselves into and throw some other names out to the media to try and get United to persuade FDJ on their behalf, probably by tempting him with more money... no dice, because we have been in touch with FDJ's camp throughout and know that if he can get out of Barca with his owed money, he'll come to us. Of all the shit Barca throw in the press, the Chelsea stories stick and do generate some actual curiosity from them... Cue FDJ's agent saying they haven't and won't agree to anything with anyone until Barca sort the deferred money. Cue Chelsea saying they'll only bid if FDJ gives them some kind of sign he wants to leave, suggesting they haven't had one yet. Cue United saying we're still confident. And remember, we have bid... but supposedly without the kind of assurances that Chelsea want before getting formally involved? Riiiight. We have made some questionable decisions in the past but we're not that inept.
Barca are panicking now... their levers have actually backfired and they can't register new signings... a meltdown of epic proportions is brewing. So what do Barca do? They ramp up the pressure on United with a swathe of 'FDJ prefers Chelsea' stories to try and get us to move before they gazump us or whatever. They even include mentions of Chelsea being willing to pay the deferred wages as if to say, 'come on guys, another club will do it if you don't'. No. Dice. In fact, we are so content that we start putting out 'oh, okay, no FDJ... Rabiot then' stories to really put the shit up Barca. We know where we stand with FDJ so we can afford to make Barca sweat as much as possible.
It is really starting to hit the fan in Barca's top office. Laporta only has one card left to play... to publicly say they don't believe they need to honour the contract. They want out, and they want out badly for it have gotten to this. And the reason they want out so badly? Because they have finally been caught out. A player has found a single club he wants, at a time when Barca wanted him gone anyway, and he is using that, with the help of the buying club, to make sure he gets his money.
To make matters worse, Barca have so many players on deferred wages and they saw the precedent it would set if they just paid FDJ at the start of all this. If they had done that, Ter Stegen, Depay and any other player they have done this to could expect to sit on their massive contract or get a huge pay out on leaving. It would be catastrophic for their short-term finances... they could be making losses of 10s of millions on each transfer out. Players could literally hold the club to ransom over the next few years.
Whether or not FDJ makes it to United remains to be seen but there is so much going on, so many twists and turns, that you can write a pretty reasonable summary with almost any outcome you want at the moment. My only real belief in this happening still comes from the fact that United just cannot be so poor as to have gotten involved, and stayed involved throughout, without some kind of input from FDJ's side.
Barca have gotten themselves into a terrible situation though, and the only way out of it is through the courts I think. Only they and the agents will know if the contracts will hold up under scrutiny or whether this is more brinkmanship and desperate measures but the language Barca is using now (criminality by 'all' involved) suggests to me that they are on the wrong end of a nasty clause in FDJ's contract.
Here is the Athletic article on that, sounds like playing games.
https://theathletic.com/3484447/2022/08/08/barcelona-de-jong-contract-legal-action/
Think Arnautovic is more dependent on what happens with Ronaldo, he stays can see a backup ST but goes and see us going for a starter ST.
We won't sign Arnautovic
So who will be our striker signing and do we get another midfielder as well
Hopefully not!
I don't know but we can't sign a player like Arnautovic for multiple reasons.
Yeah the fact that what happened in euros didn't kill this straight away is staggering
Bobby Charlton probably. Free transfer and £20/week incl lodgings
I don't think it will be allowed to happen.
United took a strong stance against discrimination and racism.
There is no way this deal happens. There will be an enormous backlash.
Yeah be hypocritical to sign someone who has racism issues after all the Evra & Suarez stuff
That would actually be the worst-case scenario for Barcelona. They risk losing a large transfer fee and w/o the transfer fee, de Jong will have lucrative offers from probably every big club.
I'm actually secretly hoping this happens to them.
Well this all seems to be coming up to the boil with all these incendiary comments about illegal and criminal activity.
48 hours and this will be done either way.
48 hours and this will be done either way.
Always believed. Still on the train.
If Frenkies contract is null and void and they want his wages back. Why shouldn't we pay Frenkie the contract Barcelona offered in full therefore he still gets the moneys he's owed and we give Barcelona nothing as he's technically a free agent no? Would that end up being cheaper than paying the 80m odd that Barcelona accepted?
It would only be valid after a lengthy court process I'm guessing but frenkie could get a chunky sign on fee as a free agent
Guys, the contract isn't getting nulled. He's not going to be a free agent.
I still don't believe he'll be joining United
You sort of have to respect just how far Barca are willing to stoop to get him out. God knows how long they've been sitting on this leverage.
Nice of Barca to give us something to talk about so we can get to 2,000 pages before he signs.
Mes que un club indeed.
Mes que un club indeed.
I come in here every week or so to see how people can still be convincing themselves this will ever happen. I cannot think of a transfer in recent memory I've been more sure won't happen than this one.
There are three main problems with this story.
- It is extremely, extremely unlikely for Barca to contemplate contesting his revised contract in the courts, as there are precedents of many other players in the same domestic league who have better contracts than FDJ's, like Hazard's for instance, and Bale's, and Messi's till last year. How can the courts establish any criminality to annul this contract when it is perfectly fair-value relative to the concerned player's profile? He is one of the best in the world.
- Even assuming Barca manage to annul his new contract and get him back to his original contract, they'd bleed a lot of money both short- and long-term. He'd walk away for free after signing a pre-contract agreement for literally any club in the world in only 18 months, and they'd still owe him all the deferred wages. That would be an economic nightmare. Surely FDJ won't sign a contract extension if the club take him to the courts. Also, taking him to the courts would make it impossible for them to move him on during this transfer window. That doesn't solve one bit of their immediate financial problems.
- If Barca take one of their own players to the courts for failing to fulfil their end of a perfectly legitimate contract, the negativity surrounding the club, and the build-up of distrust among the players would be immense. Every single player in the squad would be reluctant to sign an extension, never mind new players wanting to join them. "Hey Lewandowski, you were given a contract worth €9 million a year - turns out that was illegal given our financial precariousness - so we will lower it to €4.5 million a year."
Because they want money for him obviously
When do Barca have to register their players by? End of transfer window/this month?
Long as he don't end up at Chelsea I will survive
I agree with these points. It's not FdJ's fault he got offered his new deal and signed it. IMO i think he will stay, and by January itll all be rosey again. Probably even have agreed a wage cut and been paid what is owed. FIFPro will end up getting involved otherwise...
either way if he does agree to leave, i think by end of this week or next, it'll be set in stone
This isn’t a made up theory mate. This is largely accurate and exactly what has happened.
The only ‘tweek’ I would suggest to the theory is that Frenkie’s agent screwed up during the renegotiated contract and didn’t actually insert a clause that deferred wages need to be paid if he exits (not having foreseen that Barca would ever force his star player out). And has some of his own commission payments pending.
Hence, he is digging his heels in till he and his player get the money that is rightfully theirs.
You can sense the desperation from Barca’s mouthpieces in the last few days. Suggesting new clubs for him everyday and suggesting Frenkie prefers Chelsea as they are an actual ‘big club’. All to pressure United into paying the 17M and agent fees.
Not sure how this will end. Someone needs to blink. But im not sure why on earth any player with self respect would stay on at a club like Barca after the smear campaign they have launched against him, even threatening legal action.
I personally believe Frenkie would have made up his mind to leave a long time ago this summer. This is ALL about the money. Admitting he wants to leave Barca and any stories of him having agreed personal terms with United greatly weakens his (and the agent’s) position in getting those deferred wages, not to mention loyalty bonuses etc. hence the consistent stance that he wants to stay put at Barca.
Before the opening matches. Thursday maybe?
He can’t stay and not take a pay cut. They won’t be able to register the plethora of players they signed. So everything won’t be rosy by year end.
This Thursday? And what happens if they dont? Do they have time till the end of the month to still register?
Which is why they have gone nuclear with the legal threats.
I would assume but those players can’t play obviously.
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