It seems that Barcelona is approaching the end of the era of the sacred cows, in order to settle the club’s financial situation in the coming period.
The Catalan team is going through a huge financial crisis, due to the presence of many debts on the club’s shoulders in addition to the high wage bill, which necessitated the sale of some of the club’s assets and the activation of economic levers in order to find financial liquidity in the club.
In his address to the club’s general assembly, Vice President Edward Romeo addressed a veiled message to the holy cows in Barcelona (Sergio Busquets, Gerard Pique and Jordi Alba) without explicitly mentioning them, in addition to some players who have contracts with very high salaries such as Ter Stegen and Frenkie de Jong.
What did Matteo Alemani say regarding sacred cows?
While Matteo Alemani, Barcelona’s sporting director, said at the General Assembly, as highlighted by the Spanish newspaper “AS”: “Without hesitation, when we arrived, we discovered that salaries were generally higher than the market price.”
He added: “The salaries stood in front of us and hindered our ability to spend in the transfer market and register players, and it had a very serious impact due to the laws of the League.”
He continued: “Last season, we were subjected to the 1-4 rule from Al-Liha, it is true that 75% of these salaries have been consumed and we are continuing the philosophy of adjusting salaries to fit the Financial Fair Play Law.”
And he added, “These players are impossible to sell and tax otherwise.”
“It’s salaries that don’t match the market, and the goal is to make them disappear,” Alemani said.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta admitted that despite the fact that they negotiated these high salaries with the players, no agreement was reached, which eventually forced the board of directors to guarantee 10 million euros to sign Jules Conde.
Laporta said: “Mattio Alemani was one of the guarantors. With the 867 million euros we collected from the levers, LaLiga told us that Conde’s registration was not enough, so we had to find a guarantor.”
