A few minutes after the end of the match between Barça and Ferencváros, the Barça club announced the contract renewals of four players: Gerard Piqué, Marc-André ter Stegen, Clément Lenglet and Frenkie de Jong. In this way, the board chaired by Josep Maria Bartomeu moves tab and begins to agree with the players, individually, a salary change to mitigate the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on the club’s finances.
And it is that, although it may seem the opposite, renewing these players serves to lighten the salary mass of the club. So the covid-19 arrived and revenues plummeted, Barça could not face the millionaire tokens of the first team. In the spring, the footballers already gave up part of their fees, but now that the competition does not stop – even though it is played without an audience – they did not want to lose purchasing capital. Barça, in turn, could not afford to close a new year with losses. The formula proposed by the club, and finally accepted by these four players, was to extend the life of the contracts. That is, the interested party ends up charging the same, or even a little more, but with more years than expected.
Piqué, who was one of the first to accept the negotiations, renews until 2024 but with a clause that determines the minimum number of matches he should play next year. Ter Stegen will continue to wear the Barça shirt until 2025, and both Lenglet and De Jong extend the contract until 2026. Therefore, these players stand out from the bureaufax sent by the other players in the locker room in their disagreement with the joint negotiation with the rest of the club’s workers for the salary reduction proposed by the Barça entity. Now it will be the turn of the other players, who until now had closed in on the band.
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