Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!

Stacks

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I don't think you can compare that. Did United spend a reasonable amount of money during the last years? Absolutely, United is a profitable business, unlike Barca. But the discussion about the Glazers surely always is not about the total amount of money United is spending, but that people would have liked more money used for the club instead of dividends for the owners. Less greedy owners would have allowed to invest 50m more in the squad per season or so.
Barca topped United in the revenue charts nearly every season as did Real so they had profit but overstepped themselves with obscene fees and contracts for players who added little value. They probably assumed they would keep winning and didn't anticipate COVID also.
I read that the dividends is barely 25m a season which in the grand scheme of things is not life changing money for a club of our size. You can spend that on agents or signing on fees. Over 8 years of us saving dividends we could finally buy neymar in 2021! United pay annual dividend of $0.18 per share. Its distasteful but that's not the reason for our failures or lack of silverware.

Average players cost 50million nowadays! Look at Ben White.

The problem hasn't really been with how much the Glazers have spent on transfers or wages, more with how it has been spent.

The fact that they saw the club as a business first and football club second, has reflected in the poor decision making and money wasted over the past 15 years. It was short term thinking and it back fired on them.

There is no doubt that has changed for the better since Ole came in. Hopefully it will continue to do so and hopefully they begin to spend more of the money the club generates on the stadium and club infrastructure as well as on the squad.
I agree. Need to invest in academy too to catch up with City
 

diarm

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The wages is what I find hard to believe. Revenue losses of 300m or so are consistent with what Real Madrid reported.
The president of the club has come out and said their wages without Messi are 95% of revenue.

That figure matches both the €735m revenue reported here, and the €107m Messi was reported to be on compared to the 110% wage bill Laporte said was the case including Messi's wage.
 

GledTheRed

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What would that do for Barca? Their problem is with wages, not money in general. Pedri is still on the initial contract from his transfer from Las Palmas to Barca and is earning only €2m per year (less than 40k pw). That will make feck all difference for Barca.

Also, bring him to play him where? He’s an AM/10 and we already have Bruno and Pogba for his position.
He's an AM? I had him down s super technical number 8 Iniesta type?

He has a year left on his contract i believe? turn his head with a 100k a week offer, this guy is the future.
 

MadMike

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He's an AM? I had him down s super technical number 8 Iniesta type?

He has a year left on his contract i believe? turn his head with a 100k a week offer, this guy is the future.
Iniesta was an AM.

Again, I don’t see what that has turning his head with money has do with Barca though. We can try to sign him on a free next year, but Barca wouldn’t sell this year for sure. They’ll have to give even more money in salary and transfer fees to whoever will replace him.
 

roseguy64

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You made a statement that there was nothing Barcelona could do, which is wrong. They could have put a higher release clause in his contract. These contracts all have artificially high release clauses. Benzema is like 1 billion, Vinicius 750 million, Modric 750 million, Bale 450 million etc. Think Busquets has a release clause of 500 mill. Neymar had a release clause much closer to his market price and that was a mistake.
Were all those figures you quoted in the contracts of those players before or after the Neymar transfer?
 

roseguy64

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He's an AM? I had him down s super technical number 8 Iniesta type?

He has a year left on his contract i believe? turn his head with a 100k a week offer, this guy is the future.
Pedri has a 2 year extension option for Barcelona to activate.
 

De Portago

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Were all those figures you quoted in the contracts of those players before or after the Neymar transfer?
As far as I can recall Real Madrid already had prohibitively high clauses before Neymar, while Messi's was 250M Ronaldo's was 1B or something like that. There was talk that clauses of that value weren't really legally enforceable because they didn't represent "fair value" and that any court would have probably reduced them massively if it came to that.
 

Stacks

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United have spent a lot of money. We are in the top five for gross and net transfer spending since Fergie retired and under José had one of the highest wages bills in world football. The big issue we have had is the lack of direction, allowing past it managers with differing styles to dictate signings. Had the Glazers taken more control and moved Woodward away from football based decisions maybe we wouldn’t be in such a mess. It’s not the lack of spending, it’s how we have wasted our resources that gripes me.
Agree completely with this
 

caid

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Agree completely with this
Mostly agree with it but there was a lack of spending at the end of Fergusons years that stood us in bad stead for moving on from him. Its no longer a problem but weve been playing catch up for a while.
 

MUFC OK

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Can we please see them fail to qualify for the CL this season, is that too much to ask? I want their fans to suffer.
 

FootballHQ

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Where do Barca play Coutinho and Greizmann? On the wing or in midfield?

Such strange transfers, two #10s on a team that doesn't play with one.
Surely got to play Greizmann through the middle in short term with issues with Aguero and Depay?

Imagine saying three years ago Martin Braithwaite would be leading Barcelona striker. :lol: :lol: :lol: What a total clusterf**k.

Are Fans allowed back in Spain yet? Camp Nou is going to be seething on Sunday.
 

stefan92

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They probably assumed they would keep winning and didn't anticipate COVID also.
I read that the dividends is barely 25m a season which in the grand scheme of things is not life changing money for a club of our size.
I just looked it up to be sure, and technically you are right. But there are not only the dividends, but also the credits the Glazers took to buy the club and then load it onto the club. This is the reason why United is in debt, and the payments for this debt are also part of the "Glazers taking money out of the club" issue.
 

RC89

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The president of the club has come out and said their wages without Messi are 95% of revenue.

That figure matches both the €735m revenue reported here, and the €107m Messi was reported to be on compared to the 110% wage bill Laporte said was the case including Messi's wage.
Crazy thing is, he said 95% without Messi's salary. The last board have crippled Barca and were so incompetent it's almost unbelievable.
 

RedStarUnited

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If they sold those 3 for €45m as you suggest, and removed all 3 wages from their annual bill, their wage bill would still be 81% of the new revenue. If they had to subsidise their wages it would be higher still as this subsidy would still fall under the wage bill figure.
Something doesn't add up for me. How can they lose Messi. Coutinho, Griezeman and Dembele and still be at 80% of revenue.
 

ayushreddevil9

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Can we please see them fail to qualify for the CL this season, is that too much to ask? I want their fans to suffer.
I don't really have issues with Barca at all but its their arrogant fans(90% already transferred to psg with Messi, mind) that makes me despise them.

La liga is so shit, there's no chance they will not finish in top4.
 

De Portago

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How would you go about arguing in a European Court that membership of any sort of 'economic group/alliance' does not preclude the governing body of the group/alliance from controlling the budgets of members when the European Union has forced EU members (sovereign states) into adopting economic policies based on financial austerity in order to 'balance the books'. This has nothing to do with the rights of citizens to earn a living. In fairness, you could argue its the EUs salary laws that have tied Barcelonas hands by not allowing a salaried workers earnings to be cut by more than 50%. Barcelona did the right thing by cutting Messi loose. They have made some huge mistakes regarding salaries over the last 5 years and they need a reset.
I have no idea to be honest, my contact with legal profession is limited to the fact that I happen to know a lot of lawyers. :)

It just seemed to me that UEFA more or less abolished FFP after being threatened with litigation in front of a "regular" court by Man City, and I don't think they would have done that unless they doubt the outcome of a potential process. Whether there is difference between UEFA FFP and this version La Liga has in Spain I also have no clue.
 

elmo

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I don't really have issues with Barca at all but its their arrogant fans(90% already transferred to psg with Messi, mind) that makes me despise them.

La liga is so shit, there's no chance they will not finish in top4.
They can feck off with their holier than thou attitude and shove it up their ass. They'll have you believe that Messi would play for free and he's upset that he's forced to leave Barcelona and had to play for PSG for 35m a year.
 

The Boy

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Average players cost 50million nowadays! Look at Ben White.
Ben White is not an average player, he's at least as good as Stones was when he moved from Everton to City for the pretty much the same amount 5 years ago and I would bet my house he'll develop far better than Stones did.
 

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@giorno , serious question to you(and other Real supporters): to you enjoy watching Barca‘s mess or are you worried about the league? Which feeling dominates?
Everyone is enjoying the shitshow for what I can tell, not only Real Madrid fans. :lol:

It's really something else witnessing how bad things are going for them, I'm at awe as this has gone spectacularly bad for them. Is like watching a train wreck in slow motion and you're only left mesmerized.

So yeah, not that worried about them in the long term but I have a lot more sympathy for the genuine club supports than for the cult followers of Messi trying to make him look like a victim in all of this while Barcelona is in some serious trouble.

They're gonna be fine eventually, Barcelona is a historic club with a big following and Catalunya is a strong community. This is going to set them back and affect the league but it was meant to happen, Cristiano and Messi can't play forever and already gave their best years to both Real Madrid and Barcelona, so it was good while it lasted but is time to move on. If any this whole fiasco makes Real Madrid fans appreciate how things were handled with Cristiano and other players.
 

anant

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Poll Question:

Was gonna make a thread but maybe should just ask here.

Does the current financial plight of Real and Barca in some ways vindicate the spending policies of Man Utd, Glazers and Woodwood as a non oil club, or do you feel we should have swung for the fences every season and spent 200m each year since Fergie retired?
I think the bigger complaint is that a good chunk of the revenue the generates has been used to service the loan repayments that the Glazers took while buying the club. If not for that, we might have been able to spend slightly more.
 

Nickelodeon

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Why aren't clubs going after their younger assets like De Jong and Pedri? What better time than this to do it.
 

Suedesi

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I think Frenkie De Jong is a terrific footballer and would love him at United. But paying €20.8m a season to a young player you're signing from the Eredivise was horrific business.
In hindsight, yes. But at the time, he was badly wanted by PSG and half of Europe, so Barca had to offer crazy wages.
The other Dutch prodigy at Juve I think is on insane wages as well. (De Ligt)
 

kingwaynerooney

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Why aren't clubs going after their younger assets like De Jong and Pedri? What better time than this to do it.
I don't think money is their issue. Not at this stage. Their issue is the salary cap and a bunch of other la liga teams are going through the same crisis.

Pedri and de jong are both better than their four new free agent signings. Selling them to play the other four players is stupidity.

The question I have is what's stopping them from signing them to Barca B and playing them for the first team? From what I understand their 10m loanee can play for the main team anytime he wants and the league has no salary cap.
 
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Iker Quesadillas

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What would that do for Barca? Their problem is with wages, not money in general. Pedri is still on the initial contract from his transfer from Las Palmas to Barca and is earning only €2m per year (less than 40k pw). That will make feck all difference for Barca.
Money from sales allows them to increase their salary cap.
Part of the reason RM has a higher cap than Barcelona is because they sold tons of players over the last two years, most of which weren't in the squad.
 

redshaw

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One could get invested in this mess but what are the penalties for not getting the wage bill down. There doesn't seem to be much going on in terms of fire sale, they could manage this by deferring wages and offloading a few high earners, I'm sure they're working on more wage restructuring, we know about that.

A way to get a high earner off is to cut your losses and allow another club to sign him up for free and they give the player a one-off payment in place of a transfer fee. For Greizmann to get paid his 3 years Barca could agree to let him go, the new club instead of picking up his alleged wages and upsetting the wage structure and dressing room just pay the player a one off payment of half his contract then pay the rest over a typical 2-300k contract. You treat a one off payment of say 40-50m as a transfer fee but this goes to the player. The buying club get Greizmann for 40-50m million in effect and pay him wage that doesn't upset the rest.

With revenues expected to be back to close to normal in a year or two Barca may feel they can ride this out for a year and it may obviously not be possible to offload anyone to another club so don't quote me saying nobody wants their players or wages. They could do some work in managing the wage bill but also not be too hasty in letting Greizmann go for free if there was a taker and take a hit this season.

A 10 point deduction in the last two seasons would still have Barca finish top four.
 

diarm

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Something doesn't add up for me. How can they lose Messi. Coutinho, Griezeman and Dembele and still be at 80% of revenue.
I have a feeling the figures I saw for wages for Coutinho, Griezmann and Dembele might be the new, reduced wages they have agreed to. Whereas the wage bill Laporte was referring to were the original wages.

You're correct that things don't quite add up if Coutinho for example, is only earning €8m per year.
 

kingwaynerooney

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Money from sales allows them to increase their salary cap.
Part of the reason RM has a higher cap than Barcelona is because they sold tons of players over the last two years, most of which weren't in the squad.
Why would they sell their better players to sign free agents who are worse than the players they are selling?
It has been established they don't need to sell their stars.
 

anant

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I have a feeling the figures I saw for wages for Coutinho, Griezmann and Dembele might be the new, reduced wages they have agreed to. Whereas the wage bill Laporte was referring to were the original wages.

You're correct that things don't quite add up if Coutinho for example, is only earning €8m per year.
A part of it would be how incoming transfers are budgeted in financial reports. So, if they bought Griezmann for 120m on a 5 year contract, they'd be saying that they're paying 24m this year for him. Similarly, when you include all the transfers like him, Dembele, Coutinho, Umtiti, Lenglet, Frenkie, etc. the cost would be quite high.

For reference in the past 5 seasons, they've spent 950m GBP on transfers. Assuming all these transfers were 5 year deals, 190m of their revenues would be going on just settling the previous transfers.

Lastly, I doubt that Coutinho is earning just 8m EUR per year. If a club has bought a player for 140m, surely he'd be on 20-25m gross (12-15m after wage cut)
 

Iker Quesadillas

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A way to get a high earner off is to cut your losses and allow another club to sign him up for free and they give the player a one-off payment in place of a transfer fee. For Greizmann to get paid his 3 years Barca could agree to let him go, the new club instead of picking up his alleged wages and upsetting the wage structure and dressing room just pay the player a one off payment of half his contract then pay the rest over a typical 2-300k contract.
I think that, as far as football accounting and FFP stuff goes, buying a player for 120m and letting them go on a free 2 years later would be a substantial loss.

If you're setting a wage cap to "protect" clubs from going under but then you force them to take on massive losses in order to "protect" them they're just going to go on a death spiral.
 
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MUFC OK

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I don't really have issues with Barca at all but its their arrogant fans(90% already transferred to psg with Messi, mind) that makes me despise them.

La liga is so shit, there's no chance they will not finish in top4.
Atletico, Madrid, Villarreal, Sevilla ahead of them? Not impossible.