The summer season, Argentina's glorious division won the Copa America crown, the leader Messi alone best scorer, best player honors, in the face of Barcelona's renewal of the invitation, he showed how loyal - even willing to pay half of the renewal of the contract!
Lionel Messi (1987-), Argentine footballer
Now an unencumbered free agent who can join without a transfer fee, the likes of Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City are willing to match his past salary and are just waiting for Messi's nod.
However, Macy's firm choice was to stay put!
For Barcelona, Messi's positive response to the contract extension and even willingness to halve the salary, there is still a small distance to the official signing of a number of challenges to be overcome.
Barcelona is already heavily in debt, if they want to sign Messi (extension of the contract, that is to say, signing with the free agent Messi), they must comply with the La Liga's "salary cap" rules, but also need to reduce the salary of other players, and even let some high-paid but underperforming players to return to the team.
Dembele, who was brought in at a cost of €150 million, Coutinho, who was acquired for €160 million, and Griezmann, who was acquired for €120 million, all three are seen as overpaid and underpaid players.
However, Barcelona have made no mention of selling these players to recoup some of their transfer fees, and they have no intention of returning to the team even if they have an offer.
Rumor has it that Barcelona is close to reaching a swap agreement with Griezmann and Saur, although Griezmann, who was purchased for 120 million euros, was replaced by Saur, who is worth only 40 million euros, seems to be a bit of a loss, but at least it reduces the pressure on salaries. However, recently the matter has changed again. According to Radio Sel, Atletico Madrid said they could not afford the salary that Griezmann is currently asking for.
Atletico Madrid are bringing in a striker, preferring Inter's Lautaro Martinez, while Saur has a Premier League side willing to take him on.
Barcelona's situation is particularly difficult because Ger made it clear that if he left Barcelona, he would not want to go anywhere else but Atletico Madrid.
Coutinho, who has not yet fully recovered, has been contacted by Barcelona for a number of clubs including Marseille, Milan, Manchester City and Inter. High salary has become an obstacle. According to the news of the international sports newspaper, Inter may lease Coutinho, but can only bear part of the salary.
Dembele's situation is even trickier, with injuries on the field and off-field controversies. The player's contract is due to expire next summer, and at the moment he is basically unable to find a home and unwilling to renew his contract. Barcelona decided, if not renewed, put him on the bench until the contract expires. But this does not help, still have to continue to pay his salary.
Among other players, Barcelona expected Umtiti and Pjanic to terminate their contracts or find a next home, but were rejected by the players.
Daily Sport claims that Umtiti's former owners Lyon are interested in inviting the French defender back, but are only willing to cover half of the player's salary. Whether Barcelona will accept is unknown.
In January 2018, Barcelona signed the 195cm tall Colombian center back Mina for 11.8 million euros until June 2023, with a transfer fee of 11.8 million euros. Mina outstanding physical quality, header technology is exquisite, is a real "knife defender". But Barcelona bought but did not make full use of, half a year later to 30.25 million euros price sold to Everton. This makes people feel confused, and it is impossible to be worse than this 20 million profit.
In fact, not only did they not make any money, they lost money. Barcelona's French center back Langré, introduced during the same period, had a transfer fee of 35.9 million euros and was also signed for five years.
Mina is "with a knife defender", and this is "with a pit defender". Last season in Barcelona's back line of all kinds of mistakes, not to give the other side of the penalty kicks, or into the oolong ball, Barcelona Champions League, La Liga double line of loss, Langley "credit".
Umtiti's annual salary of up to 12 million euros, Longley's annual salary was originally 3 million euros, but last year in Bartomeu's tenure there is a contract extension to June 30, 2026, the annual salary rose to 5.7 million euros, five years down is also not expensive. Barcelona hopes to sell Longley to reduce the salary burden, but the difficulty is also quite large.
International Sports Daily reported that the Premier League's Everton, West Ham United is willing to lease additional mandatory buyout clause way to sign Longley, Barcelona would prefer to sell directly. But Longley himself clearly said: do not consider the transfer problem, just want to continue to play for Barcelona!
