Umtiti-style contract extension, Barca's accounting to survive

What is the biggest surprise in the European football market this winter? Of course, Barça, which is 1.3 billion euros in debt and only has a total salary of 100 million euros, has signed Felan Torres, who is worth 55 million euros. And the linkage incident of this transfer is that the French centre-back Umtiti, who has been listed by Barca for 2 years, has actually renewed his contract for 3 years! As The Secret has argued, Umtiti's contract extension is the ultimate solution for Barca to "improvise" in order to allow Ferran Torres to successfully register.

Many details of this unexpected contract extension remain unpublished, but the French centre-back accepted a 10% salary cut and spread the total salary of the remaining 1.5 years to 4.5 years, allowing Barca to free up 4.2 million euros in him in the second half of the season. And it was this salary cut and renewal that allowed Felan Torres to successfully register. This is also the most successful market operation of Laporta after the release of Messi, Griezmann, Pianić and Coutinho.

Salary cut renewal, three birds with one stone

Umtiti, like Coutinho, was originally a eliminated player that Barca had to sell last summer. However, due to lack of attention and long-term injuries, he was ultimately unable to get out. Before the winter market, Barca also contacted many buyers for Umtiti, among which the Turkish giants were the most interested, but Barca still hoped that the French center-back, who still had a 1 and a half year left on the contract, would create some residual value, resulting in the sale being stranded. Seeing that Ferran Torres was unable to register, Barca even considered terminating his contract with Umtiti in advance and paying part of the salary for the remaining 18 months of the contract, achieving the goal of freeing up salary space.

However, Umtiti rejected Barca's proposal, and barca did not have the funds to pay even part of the Frenchman's salary. The French centre-back still wants to stay at Barca until there is no better offer, and Laporta's team has come up with a near-perfect "accounting" renewal plan. Umtiti's continued stay at Barca comes at a 10 per cent pay cut, a range acceptable to French centre-backs, as salaries from any other club are currently quoted far below that number. Even if he can get the maximum salary of foreign aid in Turkey, he will only be 3 million euros after tax.

Barca benefited more from the renewal, with Umtiti's contract renewal increased by 3 years but the total salary remained unchanged, and the annual salary spread over the second half of the season was sharply reduced from 6 million euros before the renewal to 1.8 million euros. This, combined with Ferran Torres' seemingly high salary of €5.5 million a year, has also been depressed this season, and the difference will be made up from the next fiscal year, along with Coutinho's €8 million salary and the abandonment of loan player Demir, which has finally made up the salary limit of registered Felan Torres.

Of course, the French centre-back will not unconditionally agree to such an unequal contract extension, and the Spanish media has only mentioned that the contract has a clause that allows him to transfer freely this summer. But it is expected that there must be a compensation clause on salary, and this renewal is essentially similar to some of The salary delays of Ferran Torres, and if there is a financial owner like Newcastle United willing to take in the French centre-back, barca's salary "balance" this summer will inevitably be much lower than the 14.4 million euros on the book.

The Umtiti-style contract renewal is a divine operation for Barca to kill three birds with one stone: first, in the context of reducing the total salary as desired, the registration of Felan Torres was completed in time, so that Xavi's most desired new signings could catch up with the most important national derby; second, the valuable time set aside for half a year to purge Umtiti, and the salary price was sharply reduced by 70%; third, not only to create conditions for more profits from the sale of Umtiti in the future, but also to successfully delay the payment of part of the salary. "Did" an impressive contribution to turning losses into profits for this season's fiscal year. Of course, in essence, this renewal is also the only option that Barca had to do after Dembele refused to reduce his salary to renew his contract.

"Accounting" to survive, Barca is good at

With the high price of signing Ferran Torres, purging Coutinho and Demir, and reducing the total salary of this season through contract extensions, the "accounting" of the La Porta team in la Liga's financial fairness plan rules is indeed impressive. In fact, since the first thing after being elected president last year was a comprehensive re-audit of the club's accounts, Laporta has been prepared: before the recurrence of the new crown epidemic, the heavily indebted Barça must first cut back, and various "accounting" methods to reasonably reduce expenses must of course be used to the extreme.

Looking back at Messi's departure after 5 months, one should be able to understand the harsh reality that Laporta faces. Although the repeated deception tactics are disgraceful, even Barca fans must admit that Barca, which now has a huge debt and must continue to borrow to complete the "Camp Nou" project, simply cannot afford the total salary expenditure of 153 million euros per year after Messi's contract renewal. Even if Messi agrees to a pay cut, Barca will not be able to leave the Argentine superstar financially.

Although the new season of La Liga has fully lifted the ban on empty games, Barca has received the coveted game day income, but the high-salary mess left by Bartomeu is too big, and the Laporta team must do everything in its power to continuously remove high-paid redundant staff and start a new round of salary cuts in order to replenish the necessary fresh blood for Xavi and lay the foundation for the future "Dream Four Teams". Against this backdrop, LaPorta can only choose the option that best alleviates the club's financial pressure.

Coutinho and Umtiti have different solutions, but the end result points to reducing the total salary for the season as much as possible to make room for new signings. Alves was able to sign with the minimum annual salary stipulated in La Liga, which is the success of sporting director Alemani; loan Coutinho did not have to bear the salary, and the remaining six months of Umtiti's salary for the season was sharply reduced by 70%, which is the optimal solution found by Barca's accounting team in cooperation with the athletic team. Although it was unsuccessful in the renewal of Dembele's contract, even so, Laporta's winter market operation has far been better than that of summer market.

Barca's intra-squad age structure and competitive framework are moving in the direction Xavi wants, while Laporta is more focused on the season accounts. Barca's hard days have only just begun, but with such a shrewd chairman and financial team, the economic bottoming out is at least hopeful.