Todd Boehly could take advantage of Barcelona amid financial turmoil in a repeat of Aubameyang.
It’s not just Jeremy Clarkson when he heard that the launch of the Dacia Sandero had been delayed. It was the biggest part of the football world as Barcelona approached the abyss once again.a
After drawing with Inter Milan at the Camp Nou, Xavi’s team is almost doomed in the Champions League. He needs to win his two remaining games, one of which is against Bayern Munich, and hope that Inter do not pick up three points from their two remaining games. How the mighty have fallen, but no one seems too concerned.
Juan Laporta’s insistence that pulling economic levers over the summer or selling commercial deals, TV rights and a bit of the club’s soul up front for some money to pay Robert Lewandowski would keep the club alive has backfired. He always seemed like he would come back to bite them, but not in the middle of October.
Barcelona sacrificed long-term money for short-term financing to stop the craze that it is buying Adama Traore and Martin Brathwaite for a team that had David Villa, Pedro and Lionel Messi less than a decade ago. Budgeted on the economic levers and the humor they have become they would not abandon Europe’s elite club competition.
On paper, Barcelona is better than in previous years. The midfield with Franck Kessie and Frenkie de Jong is solid, and Andreas Christensen and Jules Kounde are the best defenders alongside Ronald Araujo. Lewandowski has an amble attacking help with Ousmane Dembele and Raphinha, Pedri and Gavi also form a strong backbone.
It’s almost comical that Barcelona continued to defy logic over the summer and somehow everything got worse before looking up for a second. The budget plan, according to MundoDeportivo, was to reach the quarterfinals. Going out to the group stage could net them over £15m of expected revenue. It is also said that last week, directors discussed a £1bn budget; Now it’s time to back up a bit.
Chelsea, who worked tirelessly with the club over the summer and came up short on most occasions, may well have a sneaky plan to take advantage of the club’s financial peril. After allowing Christensen to go free last summer, Lewandowski, Dembele, Raphinha and Kounde were serious transfer targets, while De Jong was also heavily pursued, Marcos Alonso ended up leaving Stamford Bridge eventually, Cesar Azpilicueta remaining at SW6. Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang’s deadline day transfer is arguably the best deal of all.
Now, however, given the financial demands awaiting Barcelona, Chelsea could see an opportunity to return to their previous goals. Barcelona would have lost €106m without the financial levers last season, which would have risen to €210m this season had it not been for his activities. Despite all this, the wage bill rose by almost 25%
They still owe more than £100m from the transfers of Phillipe Coutinho, Miralem Pjanic and Neto Mou. If Todd Boehly is willing to enter into negotiations with the Spaniards again in 2023, then they may not have much choice but to take any exit from certain players. If an offer comes along, they may be forced into a corner where they must accept it.
Would Chelsea want to go back to Kounde, who dismissed them out of hand over the summer, or Raphinha after she prioritized a move to Spain? That is something that only Boehly can know. It could all depend on Graham Potter and his demands too, but given there could be a fire sale in Catalonia, or a car at future windows if no more ‘great’ plans are found to resolve the financial strain, Barcelona won’t. . will get the sympathy of Chelsea in the short term.
A new midfielder is almost certainly on Potter’s list, making De Jong a serious option once again, while forward players are already being sought, Raphinha perhaps? Lewandowski makes less sense now that Chelsea already have a 33-year-old striker, but if a deal had to be made for Dembele as an exciting attacker again, he might be worth a revisit.