Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!

[Chesterlestreet]

And while, yes, Barca are also marketable and make their players famous to a degree, no-one can seriously suggest that Depay, Griezeman or Aguero have anything like the same attraction.

Obviously not – however, the problem with these hypothetical scenarios is that in reality things aren't 100% binary: would a noodle company prefer to have Messi's mug on their product? Of course they would. Would they pay more for Messi's mug than Aguero's? Again, of course they would. But would they find a deal with Barcelona completely uninteresting if Messi were out of the equation? Remember, this is a scenario in which the company makes a deal with Barcelona – not with Messi personally.

Point being that Messi isn't the one, solitary reason why sponsors find Barcelona attractive. Just like he isn't the one, solitary reason behind their success on the pitch over the last decade and a half *. He's the most important factor – nobody will deny this. But exactly how much his part is “worth” is a very complicated question: for instance, it's not obvious at all precisely how much the difference between Messi's mug and Aguero's (in the example above) would be in terms of actual money: a sponsor will pay a market price, somewhere between X and Y, Messi or no Messi. Is Messi worth an extra million yearly - or an extra ten million?


* There are “studies” that simply attribute the prize money won by Barcelona over X years to...Messi. Which is a ridiculously simplistic take. To make an obvious point, the difference in prize money between winning the CL (or La Liga, for that matter) and finishing 2nd isn't that dramatic.

 

[Mb194dc]

They needed a €500m loan from GS just to keep the lights on at the end of last season, so not much surprise here!

Didn't realise the cap would go even lower than €324m.

Sale of players is the obvious way out, clubs aren't going to take Umtiti, Pjanic even for free because their wages are too high. Unless Laporta has some magic trick, gutting the squad looks the only solution.

 

[Hulksmash]

No wonder they are still clinging on Super League.

Barcelona and Real Madrid need the Power of the English Clubs to bail them out

 

[André Dominguez]

This would be a great moment for a squad recycle and save some money. With the exception of EPL and Bundesliga clubs and PSG, all other clubs are struggling in finances, it's a good time to restructure the entire squad and football department.

 

[elmo]

Athletic describe it like this:


It doesn't seem much but when you take the size of their debts into account, the hit they've had because of Covid and the huge amount of money going out each year on old transfers, it begins to make sense. It's the as much as LaLiga think they can spend without tipping over the edge. Even if Pjanic for example was to leave on a free transfer so they get his wages off the books, there's still 45M Euros of his transfer fee still to pay!

I thought the Pjanic deal it was just a swop with Juventus for Arthur?

 

[Matthew84!]

Well after reading through this and if the wages are true its obvious now why youngsters decided to go to Barcelona rather than Utd or anyone else in the league. Also pretty clear why Griezmann went there rather than to Utd, no one with a half brain cell would pay him that much.
Utd should definitely not go after Dembele, he's injury prone and we don't need anyone one.

 

[Matthew84!]

I thought the Pjanic deal it was just a swop with Juventus for Arthur?

Lots of deals are reported one way but are completely different, just to make out certain teams get better deals. Seems everything Barcelona has done is coming out.

 

[The Purley King]

400K/week for De Jong is criminal.

400k after tax, so really his wage is approaching 800k pw, at least that is the cost to Barcelona.

 

[Beachryan]

This is what happens when you try to spend like an oil club, but actually have to pay bills.

 

[elmo]

They can’t. I worked at one of those companies. The methodology isn’t reliable at all.

Pretty sure they just take the data and inteprate it however they want depending on who's paying for it.

 

[Sunny Jim]

You could expect those wages if they were hiring a top market center midfielder, not for a player coming from Ajax. This is clearly a case where those 400k/month are being redistributed by some other people besides the player, like happens in many of these absurd priced contracts.

also one would think that Barca have so much pull that players are willing to earn less …how fecking bizzare

 

[elmo]

Rakuten alone said they would only pay half, if Messi leaves. Not to mention all other sponsors. Messis impact on the sponsoring contracts is massive. Barcelona have to pay penaltys, if Messi doesnt play in friendly games. Also Barcelona is depending on tourism more than any other football club on earth. People from all over the world travel to barcelona and pay 200 € to see Messi live in the Camp Nou, they also pay 30 € to see his Ballon D'Ors and golden shoes in the museum and visit the megastore afterwards to buy the little son a messi shirt. You just have to go downstairs and see the shirt printing queue. Every second shirt has the 10 on its back.
If you consider the massive positive impact Messi has on the club, his salary is not a problem. Wages of Coutinho, Dembele, Griezmann, Sergi Roberto, Busquets, Pique and a lot more are way too high for their actual performance.

He's 34 and isn't going to be playing at the top level for very much longer. Add the fact that we're in a fecking global pandemic, it's even more reasons to cut down all the costs, especially since Barcelona needs thag tourist money that's just not available for at least 1 more year.

Apart from buying Messi shirts on the tour, everything else will stay mostly the same. A player isn't bigger than the club, but your club seems to have failed to remember that.

 

[Guy Incognito]

No wonder they wanted the Super League to happen.

Laporta has inherited a mess bigger than when he started in 2003. Bet he wishes he didn’t get re-elected.

 

[elmo]

Barcelona have been irresponsible but La Liga has royally fecked them. They would know what Barcelona’s wages would be going into the new season and then force them to halve it seems a bit harsh to me. Must be punishment for the Super League. Are Real in a similar situation as I assume their wages must be as insane?

The cap is set accordingly to each club's expected revenue. Setting the wage cap higher would be dumb because Barcelona themselves are admitting they have problems with their revenue stream during this period.

The cap is to save the clubs, not ruin them.

 

[The Boy]

I thought the Pjanic deal it was just a swop with Juventus for Arthur?

I did too at the time, but this is the quote:

“Pjanic was aware that some kind of solution was going to be necessary, given he did not expect to play much under coach Ronald Koeman next season. Even were he to leave on a free transfer, €45 million of his transfer fee is still to be amortised (further evidence of how crazy the swap deal with Arthur Melo was, approved by Bartomeu and Co in summer 2020).”

 

[The holy trinity 68]

It’s calculated against the debt they have which I think is now sitting at 1.4bil. They borrowed something like 600mil a few seasons ago from a private New York Finacier or something to stay a float then so honestly if they some how get bailed out it’ll be a joke.

As much as I don’t want to see a club such as Barca go under they’ve done this to themselves. However I doubt Uefa, Spanish government, La Liga or the Spanish tax man will want them to go under so some miracle will happen meaning they can stay in buisness.

As for assets, they’ve tried to sell Countinho, Umtiti and Dembélé for a while with no buyers and personally their only good assets are Fati, PedrI, DeJong and that other young midfielder that I can’t recall. But if they sell those then they are done as those players are their future and the ones most likely to help them through this mess.

Aguero was supposedly so Messi would stay and Depay was agreed under the previous regime as was Garcia or so I read.

Maybe someone would be tempted by Griezman if it’s a knock down price.

Thanks for the info. It is baffling how fecked they appear to be.

 

[El Jefe]

Blaming Messi is stupid, it's quite clearly the fault of the board, borederline gross negligence. Messi should be paid whatever he earns, but its the job of the board to plan around that and it's been a monumental failure on their end. Some of the signings and wages they've offered in the last few years have been awful. Have they even made a profit on the sale of any of their players recently?

Messi might love the club but their incompetence should have nothing to do with his pockets.

 

[giorno]

I thought the Pjanic deal it was just a swop with Juventus for Arthur?

Players still carry a monetary value. Financially you're swapping a certain value for another

 

[giorno]

I did too at the time, but this is the quote:

“Pjanic was aware that some kind of solution was going to be necessary, given he did not expect to play much under coach Ronald Koeman next season. Even were he to leave on a free transfer, €45 million of his transfer fee is still to be amortised (further evidence of how crazy the swap deal with Arthur Melo was, approved by Bartomeu and Co in summer 2020).”

Swap with Arthur wasn't crazy at all, as it allowed them to write in a massive profit on his sale, which they needed to avoid being in this situation last year

 

[SirReginald]

This is what happens when you try to spend like an oil club, but actually have to pay bills.

Let’s not pretend Barcelona were not getting money that wasn’t club generated. Every big club has investors. Barcelona were financially negligent and deserve everything that’s coming their way.

Chelsea may be funded by “oil money” but I think you will find we were one of the few big clubs actually invested in the FFP rules, made other revenue stream and cut back on our spending.

Im sorry I have no sympathy for them. It shouldn’t take a pandemic or finance degree to realise their level of spending was unsustainable. Sure COVID has been unfortunate for the sport but what’s happened here is simply criminal.

 

[bosnian_red]

It's really weird why they bothered signing Memphis, Aguero, went for Wijnaldum, etc. Just digging a deeper hole for themselves with more big wages. Accept that you need a rebuild, struggle through a bit and shed off the big spenders, get a sustainable wage structure in and rebuild around De Jong, Pedri, Fati, etc.

 

[Berbaclass]

Well, you would have found companies to pay more than that if they refuse to. Their current deal is about $70m a year, no way you can't get over $35m for being on Barcelona's shirt.

Barcelona were a huge club before Messi and will remain a huge club after Messi.

Messi put them where they are now in all fairness. They have never been as big as they are now.

 

[Sunny Jim]

Players still carry a monetary value. Financially you're swapping a certain value for another

true to some extent. Pijanic value was spread across amortization period

 

[Ali Dia]

400k after tax, so really his wage is approaching 800k pw, at least that is the cost to Barcelona.

Surely that’s before tax?

 

[mk7]

Messi put them where they are now in all fairness. They have never been as big as they are now.

In all fairness, Ronaldinho sparked the evolution beforehand.

 

[Lynty]

How the hell have they been allowed to run a club like this for so long. As much as I dislike Barca, football wouldn't be the same without them - but they need a hard reset and those responsible need to be held accountable. The board have been so far out their depth for years.

 

[Berbaclass]

There is no way that De Jong earns 400k a week.

 

[Ali Dia]

This is what happens when you try to spend like an oil club, but actually have to pay bills.

They lost neymar and went into full meltdown dick measuring. Disastrous. They still have way more pull than PSG even if they paid much less but they didn’t use that to their advantage at all. That was the time to pull back and regroup. Messi is obviously a big part of the situation but they needn’t have got suckered into bad deal after bad deal. they’ve been run by morons who just wanted momentarily to be popular, instead of taking any hard decisions they just passed the buck onto the next administration. It’s just crazy. So they are basically spending double what we are?

 

[Shark]

They're in a total mess and I'm loving it.

 

[Hansi Fick]

So what are La Liga’s economic controls? La Liga set up an economic control department in 2013, staffed by analysts who review the finances of each Primera and Segunda club and establish its strict squad cost limit for each season. This squad cost limit is the total amount that clubs can spend on their first-team players, first-team coach, assistant coach and head physio, as well as their reserve teams, academy and any non-registered squad players. Clubs may choose how the money is split between transfers or wages, provided the overall limit is not exceeded. The squad cost limit is based on financial data which the clubs must submit to La Liga in the months before each summer transfer window opens. Factors which are considered include expected revenues for the coming season, but also profits and losses from previous years, overhead costs, non-player contracts, current savings, any existing debt repayments, investments and sources of external financing. For accounting purposes, transfer fees are usually split or “amortised” over the term of a player’s contract, so a part of the amount still due for players signed in previous seasons is counted within this squad cost limit each year. Whenever a club looks to register a new player, using La Liga’s proprietary “LaLiga Manager” software system, the transfer is automatically checked by its economic control team. Only when they are satisfied that the club has sufficient space in their budget to cover the transfer fee and salary can any new player be registered to play (in any competition).

Thanks for the detailed quote.

That sounds like it is a) a rather diverse calculation with room for leeway and individual judgement and b) not a salary cap as much as a virtual limit imposed after estimating yearly transfer and salary costs in connection with the debt situation, that may be applied to allow or disallow the registration of a player.

I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing Barca suffer, crash and burn, given the disgusting way they acted on the transfer market, but I'm not holding my breath here.
I rather expect them to sort this somehow and still have their silly, grotesquely overpaid misfit superstar squad afterwards, and the club not actually in ruins at all.

For example, last I checked the 500m loan they got the other week was not, as claimed here, to 'keep the lights on', but exactly to cover still open transfer amortisation costs along with Messi's wages, wasn't it?

400k after tax, so really his wage is approaching 800k pw, at least that is the cost to Barcelona.

Yeah, surely not. Frenkie is not getting paid 40m €.

And not 20m € either, let's not base our discussion on complete random numbers plucked from a BS source.

 

[arnie_ni]

Its strange how Messi has this saintly facade. I wonder if that's at least in part due to Ronaldo hate.

I don't like to get into these debates much, but I can only imagine the disgust if this was ronaldo. He'd be taken to the cleaners by everyone

 

[Abraxas]

The wage bill that was posted on here was absolutely staggering. It took me a few minutes to process it. It is nearly impossible to understand the climate within football and this particular boardroom that allowed it to happen. It is simply not worth it for a game of football, they ran the club as if they were expecting to be bailed out and were playing with somebody else's money and not within any semblance of sense.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Surely that’s before tax?

Yeah there’s no way in a million years that is after tax.

 

[cyberman]

I

Thanks for the detailed quote.

That sounds like it is a) a rather diverse calculation with room for leeway and individual judgement and b) not a salary cap as much as a virtual limit imposed after estimating yearly transfer and salary costs in connection with the debt situation, that may be applied to allow or disallow the registration of a player.

I mean, I wouldn't mind seeing Barca suffer, crash and burn, given the disgusting way they acted on the transfer market, but I'm not holding my breath here.
I rather expect them to sort this somehow and still have their silly, grotesquely overpaid misfit superstar squad afterwards, and the club not actually in ruins at all.

For example, last I checked the 500m loan they got the other week was not, as claimed here, to 'keep the lights on', but exactly to cover still open transfer amortisation costs along with Messi's wages, wasn't it?


Yeah, surely not. Frenkie is not getting paid 40m €.

And not 20m € either, let's not base our discussion on complete random numbers plucked from a BS source.

Its not BS. Unless their kids are earning 200k a week then the salaries are eaten by the big money signings of which De Jong is one. Just look at the numbers of the total wage bill that are floating around

 

[Ali Dia]

Yeah there’s no way in a million years that is after tax.

You can kind of understand Greizmann on 800 but De Jong straight from Ajax? Even 400k before tax is preposterous. He should have been on a Pogba type deal. 280. There’s no way he wouldn’t have taken that?!

 

[bond19821982]

Greizmann is paid 47m (as per another article). Barca deserves this just for that.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

You can kind of understand Greizmann on 800 but De Jong straight from Ajax? Even 400k before tax is preposterous. He should have been on a Pogba type deal. 280. There’s no way he wouldn’t have taken that?!

There’s just no way. He was desperate to do a Cryuff and head to Barca.

 

[De Portago]

Regarding De Jong, he was courted by PSG and the deal was hijacked at the eleventh hour. In that context 400K€ gross is somewhat plausible. After all it was reported PSG have given Wijnaldum 165K£ after tax which is more or less in line with that.

 

[Oldyella]

They're in a total mess and I'm loving it.

Exactly. This is their own doing so maybe it will serve a lesson to both themselves and other clubs that they face some serious consequences.

 

[0le]

Woodward is available.