BarcelonaAtlético de Madrid got away with it and managed to sign Antoine Griezmann for half the price: 20 million. Barça and the Matalasser club have finalized the agreement for the sale of the French attacker, who until now was playing on loan at the Metropolitano. In this way, a series is closed in which the Barcelona team stops entering a very important sum of money, but in return it is ensured that its very high fee will be saved next season.
“The worst thing that could have happened to us is for Griezmann to return in the summer,” they explain from the club’s financial department. And the fact is that Griezmann’s impact on the profit and loss account is capital, with a bill bordering on 50 million euros gross. An amount that, in addition to being unaffordable for Barça, would put even more strain on the famous player fair play and it would limit the club’s ability to strengthen for next season.
Several media have confirmed that the operation was official, although Barça has denied that all the documentation had been initialed. “It can be taken for granted”, they say from the noble offices, where the sale has left a bittersweet aftertaste. The club has taken a load off their shoulders even though they haven’t got the amount of money they were hoping to get from it.
“The contract is established with a series of conditions. If someone plays with the contract and the legality, everything is stopped. Between 0 and 40 there is a route. And since we have no interest in him returning, it was clear that we had to negotiate, not even reluctantly,” argued Eduard Romeu, the economic vice-president, this week at the meeting where he presented Barça’s budgets to journalists.
Atlético de Madrid secured the transfer of Griezmann in 2021, with an agreement for two seasons. However, the mattress players agreed to pay 40 million transfer fees if the attacker played more than thirty minutes in half of the matches where he was available. And what has Simeone’s team been doing at the start of the season? Well, let Griezmann play from the 60th minute, to skip the clause.
“Was there bad faith on the part of Atlético de Madrid? It seems quite clear that there was. But we have already played many games and the risk that they would not end up meeting the minimum to sign him was very high. Between not getting paid anything and eating -we have it with potatoes, or end up charging something, we opted for the second option”, they add from the offices.
The sale of Griezmann will leave losses at an accounting level
Griezmann, that striker who was supposed to sign for Barça in the summer of 2018 for 100 million but who backed out, and who ended up arriving in 2019 for 120, has been one of Barça’s most ruinous deals in recent times. The club has ended up selling him to Atlético de Madrid, his club of origin, for a figure that does not even cover his amortization. In other words, the sale, despite the 20 million treasury, will leave losses at the accounting level.
“When you negotiate, it is important to do it with a situation of superiority. Or, at least, to do it with equality. In the case of Griezmann, it is clear that we were inferior. And this has ended up being transferred to the result of the operation”, admits one of the sources consulted, close to the president Joan Laporta.
With Griezmann returning definitively to Atlético de Madrid – he signs a contract until 2026 -, the big beneficiary is the player himself, who is spared having to look at the clock to be on the pitch. It’s also good news for mattress coach Diego Simeone as he gains a very valuable piece in attack. The coach had already publicly stated that he wanted to count on the player more, but that he was a “club man” and that he would accept the skins that were sent to him from the managerial dome. Now he has no obligation. And, finally, the French team also comes out victorious, which will have the attacker in better shape ahead of the World Cup in Qatar.
