Powderfinger
Full Member
- Joined
- Oct 27, 2015
- Messages
- 2,594
- Supports
- Arsenal
Technically they can keep him in this scenario but they really do not want to. The levers are part of a financial plan and they are projecting certain revenues within that plan and also reductions in operating costs. Selling FDJ would bring in a fee of 85M (revenue) and offload salary of 90M (operating costs) which is a pretty significant part of their plan that they could not easily replace. When you further consider that both of the above amounts are fixed it becomes more important, some of their other revenue projections link to performance such as reaching the latter stages of the CL this year, that is revenue they hope to receive but could miss out on if they flop in the group stages like they did last year.
Now your point about Frenkie is correct, he can stay and keep his salary and if push comes to shove they are not going to bench an asset that is costing them in the region of 500K a week. I think the reason he may still leave is that his relationship with the club has to be close to irretrievably broken at this point and their desperation to cash in is such that they will really ramp up their efforts to force him out of the door and we have seen that when it comes to dirty tricks there is no bottom in Barca.
He will probably still leave but he is going to hang in there and get every last penny of his deferred wages back before accepting a move. He is clearly stubborn and seems a strong enough character to shrug off their petty antics so they are going to have to back down if they want to resolve this. If we were not so desperate for him to revitalize our midfield I would be actively cheering for him to stay put and refuse a move at all costs and insist on seeing out his contract as I do believe this will place Barca in a position where they will end up needing to sell off even more of their assets to stay afloat.
Barca clearly wants him to leave but I don't think that really matters very much. FDJ has always controlled his own destiny but whatever small amount of leverage Barca had over him is essentially gone once the season begins and they have all their players registered. They can't rally the public against him by painting him as the bad guy preventing them from playing Lewa and Raphinha. They're not going to refuse to play him now that the matches count. If FDJ rode out that entire storm, I don't see why he would cave now and accept an outcome he views as inferior to the status quo. He obviously prefers to stay at Barcelona, that is what he said over and over from the beginning of the summer.