Barça’s shocking financial engineering exercise to reduce its salary bill

The reduction in the wage bill achieved by the FC Barcelona in just six months. An operation that started from the departure of Lionel Messi until the unexpected renewal of Samuel Umtiti. He has also had the complicity of some ‘heavyweights’ from the culé dressing room, with the captains at the helm, and has managed to redirect cases such as those of Coutinho and Umtiti. The result is that the seven most important chips in the first squad have either evaporated or been drastically reduced.

At the forefront of this operation has been the director of football of the Barça club, Mateu Alemany, who has had no choice but to manage this delicate issue while trying to reinforce a squad whose quality bled with each new outing, such as that of Griezmann and of course, that of the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner, Messi.

The new leadership of Barça has had to multiply in this half year. Complying with LaLiga’s requirements to adapt to financial fair play and reduce debt seemed to leave the entity without the ability to maneuver in the market and strengthen the workforce. Therefore, the signings that arrived in the summer (Memphis, Agüero and Eric García) brought the letter of freedom under their arms or as a loan (Luuk de Jong). It has only been now, in winter, when it has been possible to invest in the hiring of Ferran Torres (about 55 million euros for Manchester City).

Reductions in each renewal

Close renovations for young talents like Pedri and Ansu Fati was one of the first movements, and they dedicated many hours of negotiation to obtain the reduction of the chips of the rest of the staff. Firstly, with the traumatic departure of Leo to PSG; then, with the transfer with purchase option of Antoine Griezmann (Atlético) that releases 21 million per year in salary.

The captains Sergio Busquets, Gerard Piqué and Jordi Alba –Sergi Roberto He has yet to close his deal – they also agreed to collaborate with the club for the salary reduction. But a substantial part, which has allowed to open the door of the winter transfer market, comes with the departures of Philippe Coutinho y Samuel Umtiti.

The key to the market

The loan of Coutinho (Aston Villa), assuming a reduction of the 15% token It is an economic relief (the English club wins with 65%) and sports, when releasing a token from the first team. Besides the French renewal (10% discount and tab spread over 4.5 years), can only be considered as a true work of negotiating engineering, which distributes the economic effort in the long term and, at the same time, opens the way to a sports solution in the short or medium term, also with a transfer or transfer.

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