BarcelonaThe sports management, headed by Mateu Alemany and Deco, who has been working for weeks although he has not yet been announced in the position, are working to solve the files of five footballers who went out on loan last year and who already know that the next season they won’t count for Xavi Hernández either. These are the following players: Samuel Umtiti, Clément Lenglet, Serginho Dest, Álex Collado and Gustavo Maya. Between all five of them, they account for between 50 and 55 million in salary, which Barça has estimated at a total amount close to 530 million euros, between salaries and pending amortization. It is not the final figure, because it will be necessary to subtract the losses that the organization plans to make with these footballers, among which we must also add Franck Kessie, Nico González and Pablo Torre, whom the club will also try to rent this summer.
Each case is different, but Barça’s goal is clear: to get rid of wages, a burden for the fair play financial In the absence of levers this summer that can contribute to help registrations, Alemany and Deco need to close sales and transfer players. First, to reduce the wage bill, with the aim of no longer being exceeded and subject to the 50%-60% rule (which until this week was 40%) that conditions the investment that the club can allocate to signings . In fact, the entire entity is immersed in a policy of cuts and, even, the board of directors of Barça agreed this Wednesday to present a collective guarantee of 6.670 million euros to the League in order to register the renewed players. The club, which had not reached all the cuts contemplated in the sections, uses this mechanism to have fair play.
The guarantee must allow the registrations of the players renewed during the season: Gavi – although his is already guaranteed by court -, Ronald Araujo – who has played, in the eyes of the League, the whole year with his contract old–, Iñaki Peña –renewed in May–, Marcos Alonso –renewed in January– and Alejandro Balde –renewal agreed pending the official announcement–. To these renewals must also be added the registrations of the two signings that Barça has already closed: central Iñigo Martínez – his signing will be announced from July 1, when his contractual link with the Athletic Club – and that of Ilkay Gündogan.
Samuel Umtiti’s wage rate
If the club wants to make any more signings, it needs to sell players. It is here that Alemany and Deco work to place discarded footballers. There are closed cases, such as that of Samuel Umtiti, with a contract until 2026 after renewing in January 2022. It was a formula that the football director applied to distribute over more years the payments to be received in the generous contract that the defender French achieved in the time of Josep Maria Bartomeu. After a season in which he felt like a footballer again at Lecce (starting in approximately 70% of the games), his record remains a problem for most clubs who want to count on him.
It should be remembered that Barça placed him on loan last year to the Italian team, but taking over a good part of his salary. In total, Umtiti represents about 20 million in the Barça salary mass, as the program advanced What are you playing with? from SER Catalonia. Terminating him unilaterally is an alternative that Barça does not want to apply due to the financial and judicial implications, while the 29-year-old center also does not want to accept the letter of freedom and forgive money.
The two other large salary portfolios to be solved in terms of returning loanees are those of Lenglet (16 million in salary) and Dest (11 million). In this case, their salaries – both signed during Bartomeu’s term – are also a slab. The international side with the United States does not convince Xavi. The performance of Dest in the transfer to Milan has been very discreet and the Italians have not wanted to activate the purchase option of 20 million. Lenglet has been more of a protagonist at Tottenham – adding up his participation in the Premier League and the Champions League, he has started in 70% of the matches in which he has been available – but the English are in no hurry and want to negotiate a transfer down the stretch, away from the 10 million euros that Barça wanted.
Easier to solve are the cases of Álex Collado (represents 2.7 of the wage bill) and Gustavo Maia. The club hopes to transfer the ex-captain of Barça B and take a small pinch. He will also look for a new destination for the Brazilian, who represents a salary burden slightly higher than one and a half million euros, a figure very similar to what goalkeeper Arnau Tenas would have received if Barça had activated his automatic renewal.
2023-06-30 05:30:34
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