Barcelona owe De Jong 20 million euros, Pique even more. Where are the debts from?
Debt refers to salary deferrals. Over the past two and a half years, Barcelona have agreed with the team three times on deferrals, that is, they simply transferred payments.
- First wave: April 2020, when the entire roster agreed to a 12% deferral.
- Second wave: December 2020, already after the departure of Bartomeu and during the interim leadership of Carles Tusquets (was before Laporta) – a deferral of 42.9% of salary for four years and 100% of bonuses for three. As a result, in the winter of 2020, as much as 172 million euros were thrown into the future: 122 million for salaries and 50 million for bonuses.
To persuade the players, Barça hired a large US-based asset management company, Mercer, with more than 19,000 employees. The Catalans wanted them to develop “formulas that can be put on the table and even benefit the players.” In other words: the company took the creative part of the negotiations to convince the team to forgo a share of the salary for 2020 and 2021 – the club is obliged to return the money later through insurance or compensation at the end of the contract.
- Third wave: summer 2021, when the captains forfeited 50% of their salary (even a little more) and helped Barcelona register newcomers. The club publicly thanked the players.
“We are all well aware of the difficult economic situation at Barça, the club needs help. It is worth noting the position of Piqué, Roberto, Busquets, Alba. All of them have been playing here for many years and want to help the club improve the economic situation. This is important and shows that Barcelona is home for them,” said the then coach of the team, Ronald Koeman. All this must be returned to Barcelona, each delay has its own deadline. At the same time, As wrote that for the largest delay in 2020, the club promised 3% on top.
Who owes it first?
- Almost €27m owed to Busquets.
- Pique is entitled to more than 31 million.
- Alba – almost 23 million.
- Messi – 52 million, according to Sport.es (the result of coronavirus postponements).
- De Jong earned only €3m in 2019/20 and €9m in 2020/21 in his first two seasons on a salary of €14m.
Barcelona plans to reduce the salary fund by another 160 million: Pique and Busquets are ready for another point
What to do next? Reduce the payroll – up to 400 million euros per year (now – about 560). Eduard Romeu said this back in June: “400 is the optimal figure for participating in all tournaments, and it is available to us.” Some pupils are already ready to go for another reduction. According to Mundo Deportivo, Gerard Pique and Sergi Busquets again agreed to a postponement so that the club could still register newcomers – Robert Lewandowski, Rafinha, Andreas Christensen, Frank Kessie and Jules Kunde. Barca again turned to the veterans, because the activation of the three economic levers is not enough. As specified above, in the summer of 2021, several pupils of the club agreed to the postponement at once. Let’s add details.