FC Barcelona will gladly not give up Frenkie de Jong (25). But perhaps he can’t do otherwise for financial reasons
In the summer of 2019, Frenkie de Jong had joined FC Barcelona from Ajax Amsterdam for around 75 million euros in order to continue the great Dutch tradition of Johan Cruyff in Catalonia. However, the now 25-year-old did not succeed as well as most expected, neither individually nor in terms of team success – and after three years, this chapter could now be written to an end.
Instead of the creative player becoming a key building block in the sporting rebuild under coach Xavi, FCB may have little choice but to offload the midfielder, who is being courted by Manchester United.
Barça’s salary cap is in negative territory
Because La Liga’s individual salary cap allowed the Catalans to spend only 97 million euros on salaries last season (in 2020/21 it was 347 million; Real Madrid were allowed to spend 739 million in comparison) and the poorly managed Blaugrana exceeded their cap by 144 million, their value for the coming season has been set at this -144 million euros for the time being.
So in order to at least get back to 0 in the short term, the world club, who signed Franck Kessié and Andreas Christensen on Monday, will now have to make quite a few savings. De Jong, however, would break the salary structure in the coming years – because he has temporarily waived payments in the past.
According to “Marca”, which published excerpts from the Dutchman’s contract, he collected “only” three million euros in 2019/20 and “only” nine million euros in 2021/22 in order to still give the heavily indebted Catalans some financial leeway. Including bonuses, however, the international is now entitled to more than 90 million until the end of his contract in 2026 – well over 20 million per season. Whether Barça really wants to and will keep de Jong remains to be seen.
