The rosy times at FC Barcelona are over.
The mega club is plagued by mega worries - Spain insider Santi Giménez now provides piquant insights into Lionel Messi.
Lionel Messi * is one of the best footballers of all time.
At FC Barcelona things are currently not going well.
An expert reveals the reasons - and also talks about Messi's mega salary.
Barcelona - These are tough times for
FC Barcelona
.
In one month it will be ten years since
Pep Guardiola
's team won the title sextet and was hailed as one of the best teams in football history.
The dominance in the Spanish league was almost insulting (eight of eleven titles), with the trio Messi, Neymar and Suárez, Luis Enrique even won the second CL title in 2015 *.
Since then, the Catalan Titanic has been sinking steadily.
On the navigating bridge, people have long ignored the alarm signals as a result of an eye-to-eye policy, which largely went unnoticed due to the many titles and records.
In Europe, where on Tuesday (for the sake of protection without Lionel Messi *) at least they took the lead in Group G in Kiev, the failures have been punished year after year - with the devastating 2: 8 against Bayern * as a sad climax.
FC Barcelona has to reinvent itself
Lisbon was the trigger for a catarsis.
It is
now
forcing
Barcelona
to reinvent themselves in the most difficult time imaginable.
The coach was replaced, many players sacked, and the leadership of ex-president
Josep Maria Bartomeu
resigned.
When else would these measures have been sufficient - but not in times of Corona.
The coffers are empty, a handful of money for new players was not enough for the reconstruction.
But that's not all: the stars who are there have to forego their salaries.
On October 17th, the Spanish league made it public that
Barcelona would have to cut
their salary expenses by 43 percent compared to the previous season.
The Barça squad, by far the highest paid in the world, must therefore adjust its salary costs.
From 653.4 million euros to 382.7.
And that before June 30th.
+
AS Barça chief reporter Santi Giménez.
© fkn
It would be easy to find the culprit in the pandemic for this economic disaster.
Of course,
FC Barcelona also had to
accept losses worth millions due to the dwindling tourism in the Catalan capital.
The club museum was until recently the most visited in the city, today it is closed.
The income from the VIP boxes as well as from the ticket revenues for people from all over the world, for whom a Barça game at
Camp Nou was
one of the holiday highlights, are also missing.
The fan shops hardly sell any jerseys, and there are no longer any marketing tours.
All of this is reflected in the balance sheet - but one must not forget that the club's spending was oversized.
Barça presented huge budgets of up to 1000 million euros per year, which it closed with a profit of only four million.
That means: It was a club that made a lot of money.
More than any other on this planet.
However, he spent everything in the blink of an eye.
In addition: a whopping 70 percent went into player salaries.
All footballers who had usurped control of the club and were demanding higher salaries and longer contract terms year after year.
The result: they felt compelled
to give Suárez to Atlético as a gift
.
Lionel Messi: Salary at FC Barcelona is enormous
Nothing compared to what is still ahead of Barça.
The candidates for the club's presidential election on January 24 are facing a daunting challenge.
Salary expenses still have to be reduced, but despite the
quasi-bankruptcy,
they still have to buy and the
future of Messi has to be
clarified.
The Argentine, who wanted to leave in the summer, will be able to officially negotiate with clubs from January.
His departure would be the next blow in the neck, on the other hand one would
save
around
150 million gross annual salary
.
Which, however, would only be half of the amount that LaLiga is planning to save so that Barça can finally wake up from this nightmare.
But no country is in sight yet.
The latest drama: Captain
Gerard Pique
is out for months with a ruptured cruciate ligament.
(Santi Giménez)
* tz.de is part of the Ippen-Digital network
List of rubric lists: © AFP / PAU BARRENA
