The club explained that the situation they are in at the moment requires them to reduce the wage bill to be able to sign players.
Barca yet didn’t ask for a specific wage reduction for the current club captain
Barcelona’s sporting director Mateu Alemany has been tasked with reducing the club’s wage bill, and he is already in the process of working to achieve it. He has already started contacting the club’s players, with Sergio Busquets one of them. Alemany met with the player’s representative Jose Maria Orobitg, who managed to protect his clients’ interests. For the moment, the player will not reduce his salary, and it will stay as he is. This is the conclusion of the first meeting between the two parties last Sunday. The club explained that the situation they are in at the moment requires them to reduce the wage bill to be able to sign players. Yet, they did not ask for a specific wage reduction for the current club captain.
Busquets is always willing to help the club
Busquets, meanwhile, is concerned that the club hadn’t communicated anything to him at the same time as there were many reports in the press about the salary reduction. “I’ve heard a lot of things being said and, when I come back from holiday, I don’t know what they will tell me,” he said while he was with the Spanish national team. “I’d like to hear it from them and not from somewhere else, but I am always willing to help. They haven’t proposed anything to us; they haven’t told us anything beyond what we hear from the press. It’s not the best decision to do it through the press; it’s always better to be direct and face to face.” Busquets has one more year left on his contract and, like the other players, has already had his salary reduced due to the pandemic and the club’s resulting drop in income.
The sporting director wants the captain, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba to reduce their salaries further, as they have the highest wages in the squad. In the case of Pique, the player will reduce his salary and has already confirmed this to Xavi. The coach also explained to Pique that his role had changed and laid out his expectations for him during the coming season.