Earlier today, Barcelona president Joan Laporta addressed the press, giving a mid-season account of the club’s operations and discussing the team’s achievements and plans for the future.
During the same media interaction, Barcelona director Mateu Alemany also spoke and gave an insight into the club’s transfer operations.
Among several things, Alemany also shed light on the impact of the permanent transfer of Antoine Griezmann to Atletico Madrid and the retirement of Gerard Pique on the club’s salary budget.
Griezmann has left Barça for Atletico on loan in 2021. The two-year loan agreement also had a permanent transfer option that the Rojiblancos triggered last year, although for a lower sum than what was initially stipulated.
At the same time, Barcelona also saw veteran defender Gerard Pique announce his retirement from the game of football after having been relegated to the fifth-choice centre-back at the club.
Both Griezmann and Pique moving on helped the club reduce the wage bill to a certain extent, with Alemany revealing that the Catalans saved a massive €90 million from their departures.
“Griezmann and Piqué, who were under contract until next year, have reduced the cost of the squad by €90 million. We reduce that amount of wage bill with two players,” he said (h/t SPORT).
Talking about the club’s bloated wage bill as well as the Financial Fair Play issues, Alemany added: “There was an unsustainable wage bill because the reality is that we had a wage bill of €655 million. Fair play is the representation of a given situation.
“We have made departures of players we didn’t count on and we have lowered the wage bill, but Barça need a competitive team.”
“If we get to €400-480 million in wage bill that would be 60% of revenue, which would be a reasonable figure. We don’t want to get rid of important players, but we have to lower the wage bill with less important players. We have to convince LaLiga to lower this limit,” added Alemany.
