FC Barcelona are expected to make their first big player sale of the summer as early as next week.
FC Barcelona are expected to make their first bigger sale of the summer as early as next week according to SPORT.
The Blaugrana had their viability plan greenlit by La Liga this week. It explains how they intend to balance the books amid being warned to shed €200 million ($215 million) from the wage bill by the Spanish top flight, which will eventually allow them to sign new players, register their contracts and also those of existing stars such as Gavi and Ronald Araujo.
The plan unfortunately didn’t get approved in time to make a concrete offer for Lionel Messi, who decided not to wait around and join Inter Miami while also turning down an enormous proposal from Al-Hilal in Saudi Arabia.
Had the Argentine held tight or not, however, Barca still need to make player sales to bring in fresh faces and might finally be getting close to offloading one star with a high salary.
According to SPORT, Premier
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Barca had originally hoped to receive €12 million ($12.9 million) for the Frenchman they paid almost three times more for when activating his €35 million ($37.6 million) release clause at Sevilla in 2018.
Spurs being expected to pay around half of what Barca wanted at €6 million could be taken as a negotiation table defeat at face value.
When it is explained that around €18 million ($19.3 million) a year will be saved by getting rid of Lenglet, however, and around €30 million ($32.2 million) in total considering he previously deferred parts of his salary and renewed until 2026, this could be another huge victory for director of football ‘Don’ Mateu Alemany and outgoing sporting director Jordi Cruyff.
Far more embarrassing than taking close to five times less than what they originally shelled out for Lenglet would be to allow the defender to return from England on loan and see him become one of the highest paid members of the squad despite being a player that has never featured in Xavi Hernandez’s plans.
Possibly following Lenglet out of the Camp Nou exit door next in their shared area of the field is center back Eric Garcia.
As Barca paid nothing for him from Manchester City, however, any sale of the former La Masia alumnus is considered pure profit.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomsanderson/2023/06/10/fc-barcelona-expected-to-make-first-highly-paid-star-sale-next-week-reports/