He’s looking for a like
Frenkie de Jong | The last muppeting lap
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Probably as Barca can’t afford to pay their debt back or operating costs whilst United can comfortably
It’s to do with strict financial rules imposed by La liga. Obviously the PL doesn’t have such rules so United aren’t affected. Also, Barcas revenue has halved as a result of Covid. They were on course to be the first club in the world with 1bn revenue and were living as such so the downturn has hit them hard.
The Spanish League introduced it's own strict FFP rules last season, which precipitated the Messi move, it is based on turnover vs wage bill or something like it.
Barcelona have a massive wage bill, Utd still have one of the best wage bills against turnover in the prem, our debt no matter how much you hate the Glazer's for it is well managed and easily serviced by our turnover.
"The Levers" are just things that Barca can do to increase their turnover, thereby decreasing the % of their turnover taken by wages under the threshold, this is however short-termism as these are one off infuxes of cash not ongoing revenue streams
Thanks, man. Does it mean they're not-profitable for years? That's the only reason i can think of why bank just won't give them massive loan.
We actually have less than £400m. And Barca have €1.4 billion of debt. Big difference there.
But are Barca one of them clubs that are literally too big and famous to fall? No matter what they're likely to never go bankrupt
To be honest I’m not that well versed with it all so I’m sure there’s plenty more to it. We live in debt though as the Glazers choose to do so whilst just paying off the absolute minimum (interest) each year. We could quite comfortably be debt free with what we generate if they had made a concerted effort to repay it rather than removing dividends to themselves each season but they’d rather not bother. Essentially leaving us operating in an overdraft which we don’t need to be in.
So far as I understand it, our debt is secured against the value of the club and is on preferable terms and easily manageable when set against our revenue. Barca's debt was more than triple ours and due to the ownership structure I don't think they can use assets as collateral as easily as we can and so they wound up with a lot of debt on very poor terms and had their debt rating lowered during COVID which came at just about the worst possible time for them right on the heels of some massive expenditure.
Moving forward they could go for austerity, signing cheap players or free agents and use the academy graduates and they briefly flirted with this at the beginning of last season. They stank up La Liga for 3 months and crashed out of the CL at the group stage and at that point they reversed course quickly deciding that austerity was too risky as if they missed out on future CL revenue it could exacerbate the financial problems and also their fans were close to rioting at the dreadful performances they were seeing. Their new strategy is you have to spend money to make money, the obstacle being they had none to spend and so could only obtain funds by mortgaging future TV rights. The strategy is incredibly high risk, there is a scenario where they win masses of trophies including CLs and revenue explodes as a result sweeping away their problems but there is also a scenario whereby they fail to reach the knockout stages again in 1 or 2 seasons or even miss out on CL altogether and any drop in revenue could be catastrophic to the financial house of cards they have constructed. It is fascinating to watch.
I don’t think loans qualify as being part of turnover.
I haven't seen that quality to make us chase him every single day of this summer. Good player? Of course. However, should we go for "good" and not what is better for our club and team.
Thank you. So bank loan can't be used as part of revenue/turnover - wages ratio. But TV rights is part of generated revenue, thus they can just sell those. Yeh, that kinda explain it.
I wonder why they don't just "do a City". Getting a big advertisement sponsor to beef up the revenue, but it's a loan in disguise.
EDIT: I just learnt that they have 1.4 billion in debt already. Dang.
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You're right. Others had generously explain it clearly.
I didn't know that. That's even fecked up.
Yet they buy and buy and buy.
I wonder who's going to be next on the chopping block, and they can't sustain this level of debt for that long surely? Theres only so many levers that can be activated?
That's a really accessible and informative write up, thanks. The financial stuff goes way over my head usually.
I only know this from the Civilisation games. Excellent quote!
Yeah, no.
Ah good! They seem pretty fecked…
You'd think so... but they'll get out of it somehow, they always seem to manage
Thanks for explaining, man. This is incredibly insane way of running the Club. And they've been wanting Messi to be back also. I can't just fathom of why their fans keep bury their heads in sand, and let their Club doing it.
We have Barca posters here just keep justifying their Club doing.
Because they want to believe Laporte that everything will be fine and it’s all the fault of the previous regime.
There was some rumour that Barca had missed the payment schedule to Liverpool for Coutinho and had passed it to some sort of agency so Liverpool still ended up with their money. Not sure how true that is but wouldnt surprise me.
Sure but did you catch the last comment where he says he hopes Frenkie will do everything in his power to stay. He is selling the narrative. We want Frenkie but he must take a massive pay cut, if he does not don't blame us blame Frenkie for being greedy.
This is not all he said. He also said that Frenkie must reduce his salary if he want to stay.
DADDY WANT WANT DADDY WANT
Me too. Assuming you are referring to the blonde in the pic.
Yes if course it comes with a condition, but a change from previous briefs where club asked him to leave
It’s not a problem to be in debt. Debt is a very good way to finance something, such as a new machine for your business. It only means that you owe someone money, such as a bank. The debt is repaid over a set time and with interest. For various reasons Barcelona have too much costs compared to their revenue and cannot pay the wages of their players. This is very, very serious and I am not sure it should even be defined as a debt. If you can’t pay your bills you are not in debt, you are bankrupt and your house will be confiscated. If a business was in Barcelonas situation it would be really, really bad. Probably restructure or bankruptcy and legal and financial consequences for the board and directors unless appropriate steps had been taken prior. Buying new players like no other club in Europe probably does not count as appropriate steps.
Even if they are legally allowed to invest in new players while they still cannot pay the wages to the existing players, it must be completely unsustainable for them long term. I think these clubs are so corrupt that they just calculate that someone or something will come in and save them later.
Pathetic club.
Manchester United had a revenue of €712 million prior to the pandemic. With that revenue and control over costs, a debt of €400 million is not an issue on its own. Whatever we think of the Glazers, United is a very well run business.
There has never been any statement from Laporta asking De Jong to leave.
I'm not even sure they're spending the money especially well. Kessie is a good signing right up to the point they sign Bernardo Silva at which point hes kind of redundant - an expensive bench player that will probably never be used because gavi is more likely to change a game and will be on the bench with him.
They needed full backs and a cb. Looks like they'll be shopping in the bargain basement for full backs that probably wont improve on their current weak selection and i think both of the cb's they've bought are probably better in a back 3. They'll have a hard time with the level of cover you'd expect them to get.
Auba worked out quite well for them but his wages are climbing a fair bit this season and he probably wont play. Depay has been there a year and is out the door if they can find someone willing to take him (no one seems to be). He's getting replaced with Torres and Raphina at great expense and i'm not sure they're better players. They do fit the team better i guess.
I feel like this coversation comes up every so often when a team goes out and buys 5 players. It never works out as well as it could have. Look at Chelsea a few years back buying Havertz and Werner and a few others. Most worked out relatively well in the end but it took a long time for most to settle and some were just ok. It didn't transform them overnight, it was messy and disruptive and took a while to settle.
Meanwhile Real Madrid have added one or two players to a successful team. By the time Modric and Benzema retire Courtois, Casemiro and Rodrygo will have probably added a couple more champions leagues to their trophy cabinet and they'll still be bastard hard to beat even when playing badly. They'll 'carry' Tchouameni and Camavinga for a couple years till they're ready.
They needed full backs and a cb. Looks like they'll be shopping in the bargain basement for full backs that probably wont improve on their current weak selection and i think both of the cb's they've bought are probably better in a back 3. They'll have a hard time with the level of cover you'd expect them to get.
Auba worked out quite well for them but his wages are climbing a fair bit this season and he probably wont play. Depay has been there a year and is out the door if they can find someone willing to take him (no one seems to be). He's getting replaced with Torres and Raphina at great expense and i'm not sure they're better players. They do fit the team better i guess.
I feel like this coversation comes up every so often when a team goes out and buys 5 players. It never works out as well as it could have. Look at Chelsea a few years back buying Havertz and Werner and a few others. Most worked out relatively well in the end but it took a long time for most to settle and some were just ok. It didn't transform them overnight, it was messy and disruptive and took a while to settle.
Meanwhile Real Madrid have added one or two players to a successful team. By the time Modric and Benzema retire Courtois, Casemiro and Rodrygo will have probably added a couple more champions leagues to their trophy cabinet and they'll still be bastard hard to beat even when playing badly. They'll 'carry' Tchouameni and Camavinga for a couple years till they're ready.
This is the Barca spin though.
The club has briefed the media repeatedly that it is pay cut or leave as though no other option exists but you won't find Laporta ever saying openly that Frenkie must go, he has stuck to the story that Frenkie is valued and he wants him to stay. It is a classic case of judging someone by their actions and not their words. Laporta claims he is not for sale but has happily negotiated a fee with us, he claims he is valued but then has Xavi utilize him as a backup CB and he claims they will do all they can to keep him whilst trying to force him to give away tens of millions in salary for that privilege.
No it’s not! It’s reverse psychology to put pressure on him to go or accept a pay cut he has no intention of accepting!
With the way they're playing with Frenkie's and other players' wages, levers and at the same time spending money like crazy on new signings, it seems to me like Barca is really expecting to win CL or the league. That's a very risky strategy. Things can go really bad if they win feck all .Their revenues aren't even fully theirs anymore. I hope it happens. Feck them. Frenkie will come either this or next window, it's obvious how it's gonna play out. Barca shooting themselves in the foot, players leaving because they have no choice. Barca Meltdown 2023, you love to see it.
Of course, if he bends over and takes takes the reported pay cut. It could happen but I think that would have been done weeks ago if he was committed to their cause. I still think he'll end up here, or somewhere other than Barca. Especially if they're trying to sign Bernardo Silva.
Laporta mentioned a surprise. I think he's referring to the last lever, Frenkie leaving.
United's debt is basically used as a way of the Glazer's companies avoiding tax as much as possible. It's in their interest to keep that there as long as the costs of servicing the loans are less than the possible tax they'd pay. Barca's debt is a great big black hole of living beyond their means...
when does La liga start? Do they need to pull more lewa’s to register lewa?
Something got to give. Could be marvellous theatre.
Something got to give. Could be marvellous theatre.
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