Frenkie De Jong Finally Negotiates Salary Reduction To Stay At FC Barcelona

Frenkie de Jong now looks certain to stay at FC Barcelona and is willing to negotiate a salary reduction in order to do so.

The Dutchman was bought by Barca from Ajax for a fee of €75mn ($74.8mn) in 2019 but has found himself the focus of one of the current window’s biggest transfer market sagas this summer with Manchester United said to have agreed a deal worth €85mn ($84.8mn) with the Catalans for their 25-year-old midfielder in mid-July.

Due to the Premier League outfit’s lack of Champions League football, however, and a desire to make things work at Camp Nou, De Jong turned down the Red Devils despite them now being coached by his former Ajax manager Erik ten Hag with whom he embarked on an unlikely run to the elite European club competition’s semi-finals in his breakout 2018-2019 season.

Though there were rumors of Liverpool tabling a bid for him this week, SPORT have said on Friday that De Jong is certain to remain in Xavi Hernandez’s squad this term with his agent even prepared to negotiate a salary reduction to make this happen.

This comes despite De Jong insisting that deferring part of his salary once – in October 2020 under the rule of previous president Josep Bartomeu – was enough, plus supposedly being angry with Bartomeu’s successor Joan Laporta and the club leaking that this agreement might have been illegal.

De Jong is set to earn €18mn ($17.9mn) this season and then €88.58mn ($88.4mn) over the last four years of his contract, which expires in 2026, due to the arrangement he made with Bartomeu.

In a change of heart, though, De Jong’s camp are ready to sit down with the Catalans and talk about restructuring his deal again with proposals already being made on the matter in order to “reach a favorable agreement”.

Xavi and Laporta have both stated in public that they want to keep De Jong, yet the club needs him to reduce his salary by 50% in order to fall in line with a new policy on Laporta’s watch that sees no first team player paid than €10mn ($9.97mn) per year.

On Sunday, De Jong is likely to feature in Barca’s home match against Real Valladolid in La Liga.