New FC Barcelona Signing Can Leave Catalans For Free On Sunday

One of FC Barcelona’s new summer signings can leave the club for free on Sunday if he hasn’t been registered by then.

Ilkay Gundogan arrived in Catalonia on a free transfer, fresh off the back of captaining Manchester City to only the second treble ever seen in English football history.

The German with Turkish ancestry knocked back a contract extension from the Mancunians to take lower pay at Barca, such was his desire to complete a move he had described as a “dream”.

Thus far, though, things have been pretty rocky for the 32-year-old with his new employers.

On the preseason tour of the United States concluded last week, he made his debut under Xavi Hernandez via a second half cameo against Arsenal at the SoFi Stadium.

In Arlington, Texas the following weekend, he got the nod to start from the offset against Real Madrid only to hobble off before half time in the eventual 3-0 win.

Whether Gundogan picks up minutes against Tottenham Hotspur in the Joan Gamper Cup on Tuesday is up in the air.

He posed for the traditional photo with the trophy alongside Romeu, and the other big new acquisition in Inigo Martinez, but his involvement is touch and go.

Yet what is far more concerning is that Gundogan still hasn’t been registered to feature against Getafe at the weekend in Barca’s first fixture of the new La Liga season.

As per a widely-reported clause in his contract, this means he can walk for free on Sunday if the matter hasn’t been resolved.

And, perhaps most worryingly for cash-strapped Barca, Gundogan would still be paid for a full year in a situation AS correspondent Javi Miguel described as ‘grotesque’ while SPORT went for ‘tense’.

Barca have just 13 players registered for their defense of the Spanish top flight crown and two of them – namely Ousmane Dembele and Franck Kessie – could leave in the coming days.

President Joan Laporta is banking on these sales and also offloading a 16% stake in Barca Studios worth €65 million ($71.5 million) to a German investment firm.

These developments are dragging on with a mere five days to spare, yet Kessie’s departure to Al-Ahli, which it was thought would have been announced by now, should free up close to €9 million ($9.9 million) according to Mundo Deportivo.

In June when he was unveiled, SPORT reported that Gundogan will be paid around €10 million ($11 million) a season on his three-term deal.