BARCELONA – Barcelona for the 2021-22 season will start to take shape from the meeting that Joan Laporta and Ronald Koeman are due to hold this week.
After the first contact between the new president and the Dutch coach during the trip to Paris, Koeman announced on Saturday his intention to meet with the manager taking advantage of the League break to start planning the future of his team’s sports and in this meeting, sources from the recognized entity ESPN Deportes, will begin to clarify the future of several Barça footballers.
The new directive begins to know the financial reality of the club after the transfer of skills in which the manager transferred all kinds of documents confirming the delicate economic situation and the difficulty of consolidating the first team, a scenario that is largely unknown to the coach and motivates that the intention to go to the transfer market is inevitably conditioned by a reduction in the payroll of the first team that has to go through the departure of several players.
“The payroll is close to 90 percent of the club’s budget, UEFA recommends reducing it to below 70 and ideally it should be 50 percent,” Carles Tusquets, a former chairman of the board, said in a statement. clear statement. of the difficulties that the new Barça management will face in fulfilling its goals. And that, from the very beginning, will force him to negotiate the losses that Koeman can consider and accept.
Barça needs both money for transfers and savings in salaries, and the names of Coutinho, Umtiti, Neto, Junior Firpo, Braithwaite and Pjanic are indisputably on stage … Despite the fact that the signing of some of them is not amortized. The maxim “Release before entering” is more obvious than ever and if the cases of Neto or Junior Firpo, willing to negotiate a transfer, are understood less problematic, this is not the case with Coutinho, Umtiti and Pjanic. With the last two mainly.
With a transfer cost of 145 million in January 2018, almost 60 amortized and more than 40 in salary (gross) for the two remaining seasons of his contract, the case of Coutinho, now injured, leaves no doubt among leaders .
As was the case with Riquelme in 2003, the Brazilian has not adapted to Barcelona and is considered important to find a way out, given that he has a market in the Premier League, adjusting the figures to the maximum, risking a minimal accounting loss if he could. be traded for less than that 60 million, with the obvious savings it would mean for his salary.
Samuel Umtiti is fully depreciated in terms of signing (25 million euros were paid for him at Olympique Lyon in the summer of 2016), but the main problem is his high profile, over 15 million euros per year, and the two seasons remained on the contract. Saving the 30 million total salaries is considered transcendental, so a low-cost transfer is the ideal scenario … Provided the player has agreed with a club that has kept it or was close to the emoluments it has in Barcelona.
It is less easy to find a way out for Martin Braithwaite, under contract until 2024, with a amortization pending at the end of this season of about 10 million euros and just as unfavorable to accepting his departure as difficult to place in a transfer which does not cause accounting losses.
PJANIC … AND GRIEZMANN
Equally difficult or more difficult is the case of Miralem Pjanic, who without entering the coach’s plans has three more seasons of contract, 45 million euros to be amortized and a transfer almost impossible to agree. The departure of the Bosnian midfielder could be facilitated by a transfer according to the image and resemblance of what happened to Coutinho last year, the destination club taking over a salary of almost 9 million euros.
And no less simple is the situation of Antoine Griezmann, who does not envisage an exit, whose figure is so recognized and questioned in equal parts in the club and whose future ventures will be the subject of debate until the end of the season. For the former Atlético player, there will be around 70 million euros in transfer amortization, but if that were not an unattainable figure for some clubs that wanted him, adding the almost 30 they cost in gross salary annually, I do the utopian operation. Or close.
RENEWAL OR SALE
Being as Lionel Messi is the cornerstone of the project, with Laporta confident that he will start his approval for renewal, being together with Òscar Mingueza (with whom he negotiates) the only player of the first team to conclude the contract this season, the plot must enter to assess the future of the three players who finish it in 2022. The three, (Sergi Roberto, Ousmane Dembélé and Ilaix Moriba), in principle, enter the club’s plans (the latter is indisputable), but while with Sergi Roberto , he trusts In a pact without many failures, with Dembélé the situation is not at all clear.
Enjoying the best moment since arriving at Barça, the relationship between Dembélé and the club has not been idyllic in recent years, and Laporta must face a renovation in which the economic problem will have a transcendental weight. With a salary of around 20 million euros, the club considers a reduction necessary in order not to know to what extent he will accept the player, so if no agreement is reached, the door of a transfer would not be closed, especially having in whereas for youth and quality, Dembélé could mean a good economic injection, despite the risk involved in releasing it.
STORAGE SIGNATURE
With all those conditions that Laporta’s board of directors has on the table and are being considered by Koeman, the signatures that Barcelona can make would be suspended from the beginning. Eric García, Memphis Depay, Georginio Wijnaldum, Emerson and Erling Haaland are the names that are, more or less important, on the table and with which a decision must be made. Haaland, it’s no secret, it’s the most coveted name and the hardest to achieve. His arrival would mean an investment of over 120 million euros (excluding salary) and to make it clear there should be the inevitable counterpart of emptying lockers in the locker room, in addition to extremely difficult management.
However, and being the number one goal on the list, understanding the need to incorporate a striker with a goal, Barcelona are working with other options, such as the Swede Aleksander Isak, from Real Sociedad, whose signing would not risk a single , nor the veteran Sergio Agüero, who concluded his contract with Manchester City, was already offered to Laporta during the elections, but he does not enjoy unanimity at the Camp Nou.
Depay and Wijnaldum, who would arrive with the release letter, have the express favor of Ronald Koeman, although that of the Olympique Lyon striker remains feasible, there is not, at all, as much security with the Liverpool midfielder. On Sunday, from Barcelona, the information indicating an agreement between the club and the player’s representative was rejected, and at Camp Nou his signing arouses sufficient reservations, understanding that it will reduce the growth of young people in their careers, beyond Ilaix Moriba.
With Emerson, the situation is not so definite. Barça, who bought him half with Betis in 2019 for 12 million euros, have the option to take over all his rights for 6 million at the end of this season, but have not decided whether this acquisition would incorporate the Brazilian side in the team or for a subsequent transfer for a higher figure, knowing the interest he arouses in Italian football.
As for Eric García, after taking for granted an agreement for his signing at no cost at the end of this season at Manchester City, Barça remain absolutely silent, despite the fact that this week there has been speculation about a departure from positions with their representatives.