De Jong for me.
Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!
- Thread starter The Boy
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran hold a long overdue conversation about United's awful league form with 1 win in 7. They discuss a disappointing draw at Bournemouth, a not so disappointing draw against Liverpool and a crushing defeat at Chelsea - Is time nearly over for Erik Ten Hag?
Then in a special second half of the pod, Nik welcomes Natalie ( https://twitter.com/natalie_17) to discuss the fortunes of Manchester United Women as they booked a place in the FA Cup Final after a historic first ever win vs. Chelsea.
A reset, that's an interesting thought.
Given Griezman is on over 500k and not likely to get that anywhere else he's not going anywhere because he's tied into a contract, same with the other lads no doubt.
Clubs won't offer them the same money so unless they pay them up I doubt anyone will sign them. Even then they came third last season and looked like they could challenge, it's not like they've collapsed to the point they aren't qualifying for Europe.
His promise to sign more than one player. Is this supposed to be controversial? All clubs sign players, including Barcelona. Bartomeu did not invent a new model for Barcelona.
Signings aren't really Barcelona's problem. The problem is their wage bill.
Why do you assume this is the end of the collapse ?
As the OP thread states, Barca are on the brink… meaning it can go one of two ways.
It's not that it's the end of the collapse; it's that going further down is not as easy as the drop they've experienced so far.
Nothing is going to happen. Griezman will go to Atletico, if not I have read that they can register whatever players they want. Umtiti, pjanic and co will not be registered and will be sold in Jan window. Crowd will be back and they will be linked with big money singings like Halaand again next year.
If things were that bad De jong, Pedri would be linked to big clubs right now.
If things were that bad De jong, Pedri would be linked to big clubs right now.
They're heading down the Arsenal highway. Next stop, mid table and no Messi.
The financial issues will carry on past Messi's retirement. It will take along time to balance the books and clear up the squad Players like griezmann arent going to take a pay cut to go elsewhere why should they? Footballers careers are short. Get what you can before you retire. Its why Madrid have no hope of getting rid of Bale. One season left on his 600k a week deal. Like griezmann he'd want every penny owed. I would if i was in their shoes.
That's the issue fans don't care when clubs are spending recklessly (in fact fans generally praise their owners when they do), they only care when the club has to deal with the consequences of spending beyond their means.
I care because I am a football fan and care about the health of the game and right now it is the normal operating procedure for clubs to operate at huge losses and no club is above what is going on at Barcelona. I care because I'm a United fan and the financial losses we are racking up and the increase in debt is scary and yet still fans are demanding we spend 100's millions on players every summer and hand out bigger and bigger contracts.
Both your clubs went batshit insane years ago. Real are worse if anything given that you started the whole Galactico nonsense that set football on its current financial path.
I would bet my right arm that none of them would have been angry when they signed. Fans never complain when clubs make the signings or when they spend the money on the big names.
Why not both. Us big clubs need to look out for the small fellas in times like these. Throw them some fat cash stacks for FDJ and Pedri, we sort our midfield for the next decade, they can finally start registering some players as they aren't decimated by debt. Win-win.
TBH, I am a bit shocked none of the big clubs have mooted any feelers or bids for De Jong etc. Maybe waiting till 8/15?
He probably doesnt want leave. Barca need to come begging to him to take one for the team. If they haven't yet that means it hasnt sunk in that they're stuck with dembele etc.
Probably the 15M Firpo sale gave them false hope. Magic trick of the century. How they managed to remove all the footage of him on the internet is a mystery to me.
Their greatest accomplishment in recent times.
I can't believe there have been no reports or rumours about clubs in contact with Messi.
If it had been anything to do with United, there would be crazy stories all the time.
Messi is a free agent and yet zero news from the press.
If Messi has from the outset already determined he isn't leaving, then that is an logical explanation. But given his contract wishes and wages will no doubt put huge pressure on Barca, it seems crazy he is happy to do that to the club he loves imo.
If it had been anything to do with United, there would be crazy stories all the time.
Messi is a free agent and yet zero news from the press.
If Messi has from the outset already determined he isn't leaving, then that is an logical explanation. But given his contract wishes and wages will no doubt put huge pressure on Barca, it seems crazy he is happy to do that to the club he loves imo.
Don't give a damn about the love for the club or whatever. It's BS. If they can't pay you, it's exploitation, pure and simple. They still owe money to the players as well in form of backpay and it's constantly building up.
Totally agree with you the reason I care is because, well I don't want United to end up in the same place Barcelona is right now. We might not be there yet but if we spend 300m € every transfer window like the transfer Muppets on here want us to we'll probably be there in a couple of years.
Exploited? They earn vast amounts of money even with the temporary pay decreases (if they accept them). If they feel nothing for the club or the fans, then they’re free and able to afford legal advice.
No club other than PSG is stupid enough to pay Messi what Barcelona pay him even woth a paycut. Besides he has no desire to leave Catalonia nor does his family.
Theres probably a core of players Barcelona need to keep to ensure they can be competitive next season. Messi aint going to win football matches by himself with no quality around him.
Can someone share an article or resource I can read to understand what is going on (something accurate and not biased)?
I am seeing a lot of “haha it’s the end”, “they’re fecked”, and armchair analysis in here but not a lot of information.
I am seeing a lot of “haha it’s the end”, “they’re fecked”, and armchair analysis in here but not a lot of information.
Yes, I get that, but if it had been United in some way, the press would be having a field day. Why does Messi escape this.
Surely he is bigger than Man Utd.
Check the OP and the swiss ramble thread on twitter, it's also a few pages back in this thread
That's what it is when you sign a contract and they start telling you you won't get what you signed up for. Or for when they do what they did to that kid whose contract they unilaterally revoked.
Once before the invasion and once after when the other candidate had also been supportive of both invasions.
Anyway the point is, voting for a moron that goes and does some shit you couldn't have anticipated doesn't make you responsible for his acts. At best it just says you made a bad decision, or you had no good options.
Agreed, and even though we arn’t going full muppet we have still been spending above our means and handing out some truely stupid contracts.
https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...-push-to-offload-players-to-keep-lionel-messi
This was a good article by Sid Lowe from a few days ago.
iker speaking the truth
Not downplaying Beckham's impact - he was absolutely huge and a global icon comparable to the greatest. Anyone questioning that doesn't know what they're talking about.Let’s see if Messi turns up on the next Friends Reunion or Ellen Degeneres, or erm, at the fecking White House….
But hey, we “didn’t even have social media then”.
Kin ell.
Just a clarification though - the invite to the White House was extended after LAG won the MLS title. Any professional team that wins the championship (or world championship as we shamelessly call it here) gets invited to the White House, be it the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL or MLS winners - it's a tradition and not an individual accolade afforded to Beckham in particular.
That would be a sexy signing. Position we need, good age.
Im surprised we aren’t hearing more about other top clubs (city, Chelsea, PSG, Bayern, Liverpool..) trying to sign players from Madrid or Barcelona.
People saying De Jong need to look into how much his being paid. Massively over paid for his age.
Favourites for La Liga next season?
Absolutely agree with Pedri.
We should go and pull Barca’s pants down with an offer they can’t refuse for Pedri. This kid is going to go right to the top. If Pogba left, Pedri and Bruno would be an amazing solution.
So, I’ve been reading the thread brought, but... is there any danger according to the laws that Barcelona are literally not going to be allowed into next season’s la Liga?
Should have done that last year when he wanted to leave. Could have gotten rid of those obscene wages AND gotten a transfer fee for him from City.
Our highest paid earners are Dave and Pogba. He'd come in to replace Pogba and earn somewhere in the middle of them.
He fits the profile of the type of player we need and if we don't get him, he'll end up at City or Bayern
No, they just wont be able to register their new signings (that includes Messi and his new contract), from what I understand.
Decent post mate.I've seen those arguments being throwed around a lot, more than in previous years, but both of those arguments lack context.
About the TV rights sharing, as it's been said a lot of times, the first ones that didn't want that were medium sized teams, when TV rights became huge in the 90's, Real Madrid and Barcelona were ok with all the teams sharing a collective agreement to negotiate, teams like Deportivo, Sevilla, Betis or Valencia said no
They're asking now for what they rejected in the past, and even if they can have a point since some teams aren't owned by the same people, other teams are still ran by the legacy of their past owners, until those guys make way for new people, consensus will be hard to find.
- First because in a war for the media rights, some channels used them to haggle the price with Madrid and Barcelona, they found that they could save money by investing part of what they could offer to Real and Barça to the rest of teams on the league, in the end if you have the rights of 18 teams, you're going to have a Real Madrid or Barcelona game per week secured. That money blinded the usual 90's Spanish president with a little more money on the short run and a lot less money on the long run.
- Second, the money those teams got for the medium and short term got to their heads, they invested all of it hoping to dethrone the big 2, thinking that there was a lot more on their way in next years, it wasn't that way.
- Third, they used their position of power to screw teams out of the equation, Extremadura, Oviedo, Racing de Santander, Salamanca, Mérida... all those teams that were basically fodder to fight on relegation those years got less money than they deserved because the midsize kingpings didn't want their position threatened by clubs from below.
And about how La Liga has failed to market themselves... they've done a decent job, but there's a big elephant in the romm, this league doesn't have the tools to fight on the same ground with the EPL, Bundesliga or even Serie A or Ligue 1 if things keep changing.
In the EPL scenario, for starters the EPL has a bigger reach just on language alone, with native language viewers all over the world and, most importantly, with the biggest media in the world and a lot of GDP countries on that list (US and Australia are good examples).
If you compare their national market, it's 47M in Spain, 67M in the UK, 67M in France, 60M in Italy and 83M in Germany, that alone speaks about how hard it should be for La Liga to aim for the 1st spot in the world when it coexists in the same continent with bigger, richer countries that also have Football as their 1st sport priority.
Regarding the game times there's also another factor, Spain is in a different latitude to most of those leagues, and it's in a wrong timezone, something that has shaped the culture and customs of the Spanish people in many things, from eating and sleeping habits, to leisure time and ultimately, football. Going to a game at 13:00 it's not the same same for a German or a English than for a Spaniard, in order to better export our product to better time gaps, we have to take away the game as it's known from its society, and then there's the latitude problem, playing it's not the same in Gelsenkirchen or Brighton from February onwards, than doing so to Sevilla, Valencia or Granada. You can't even compare Napoli to Sevilla since "at the same time" there's almost one and a houlf hour difference between cities, even if their clocks don't reflect it.
Spanish is also an international language, but the power of it's media doesn't rival the power of the internation UK/US channels, and even in countries that could've been a gold mine for La Liga (let's say Mexico or Argentina), the local leagues have more impact than La Liga, that's not the situation with EPL vs MLS or the A-League.
And lastly, the population density of each country has a drastic effect on the overall level of the leagues.
Part of why the EPL is the king right now is because you have better games on a daily basis, not just due to the general level of the teams (deciding if West Ham is a better team than Levante is for another topic), the country has more people, and that people spreads more around a bunch of teams and has better connections between games than someone from Vigo who wants to watch any away game in La Liga (closest travels, Madrid and Bilbao) and things get even worse when Mallorca, Las Palmas or Tenerife have a spot in 1st division. This has a huge impact in the perception of the overall level of the league, specially in social media era, because who cares if Granada, Levante or Real Sociedad are having a great season in La Liga, if virtually no one is talking about it on forums, reddit or youtube? Spain is, again, at a disadvantage here, since everything steers around Barcelona and Madrid with no sign of it changing.
Maybe the situation could change if a new team manages to find success in Barcelona and rival the local team (hard to do, if you account what FC Barcelona represents to that area), or if Valencia manage to free themselve from corrupt boards. Even Bilbao's signing politics, something to be proud of, ends up hampering the overall level of La Liga, since it's basically blocking the 3rd biggest region of the country from bringing a juggernaut club capable of rival Real Madrid and Barcelona (like they used to do in the pre-bosman era).
If we're being realistic, we have two options, we either have a fair competition within our national market at the cost of losing power on the European side, or we adapt to our situation and put all our efforts in powering the only teams that can go toe to toe with other European powerhouses. As nice as it would be, I can't see a future in which Barcelona and Real Madrid lose their advantages over Valencia, Sevilla, Betis or Real Sociedad and remain as competitive in the UCL as they've been for the past 30 years.
I've always thought the PL is made for TV - it's end to end it translates well into foreign market, especially the US where "sawcer" has had an uphill battle for 20 years. And of course none in the world has the same traveling culture as the English, and devotion to local clubs as the English + which coupled with the most expensive tickets in the world gives them a huge advantage.
Still, La Liga has done a poor job in branding and selling TV rights - for many years - and I'm talking peak Messi/Ronaldo years it was hard to watch El Classicos, and that shouldn't happen on the biggest market in the world (USA) where soccer is so popular amongst huge swaths of the Latin population. We're talking about the biggest match in the world, that you'd have to steal an illegal stream or go to dodgy bar in NYC - unacceptable!
Even Serie A or Bundesliga do a decent job of marketing their product nowadays - feel like La Liga has a lot of catching up to do, still.
Yeah fair enough, I'll swap it out for a pic of him high fiving his mate the First Lady instead, in non MLS capacity
Or I could have a pic with him and his mate the biggest movie star on the planet, etc. As you say, anyone questioning that doesn't know what they're talking about.
good points