Barcelona’s history of deals under Josep Maria Bartomeu have turned out to be ruinous for the club, but as time goes on and more details of his management are revealed, the situation only gets more grave. The latest being that Atletico Madrid more or less threatened Barcelona into a €15m payment.
The Blaugrana ended up paying Griezmann’s release clause in 2019, amouting to €120m. However previously, in 2018, Barcelona had tried to sign the French star too, with Griezmann publicly rejecting them in his ‘The Decision’ documentary.
However after Atletico Madrid got their hands on Barcelona emails to Griezmann and his sister (who is his lawyer) before they had made an offer for him, they threatened the Blaugrana with publishing those emails. MD say the upshot was that Barcelona and Bartomeu agreed to pay €15m for the first option on five Atletico players, including Saul Niguez and Jose Maria Gimenez, and three more youngsters, in exchange for keeping their correspondence quiet.
Barcelona have never used those options, which allow them to have an offer accepted if they match another already accepted offer. They did get a €5m discount off the €15m when Luis Suarez moved to Atletico Madrid in 2020, but including that €10m, the Griezmann deal cost Barcelona a total of €130m.
Meanwhile it is pointed out that Atletico sealed his return for €20m plus €4m in variables last summer, meaning the total cost for the Blaugrana was an incredible €53-55m per season, plus his €38m per year gross salary. Due to the €27m ammortisation costs, combined with that contract, Barcelona decided to drop Griezmann’s price to €24m all-in for Atletico last summer, as opposed to the €40m clause originally stated.
Altogether, it’s a deal that will haunt the Barcelona accountants for some time to come, and explains the financial ruin they found themselves in after the pandemic decimated the club coffers too. As painful as the Griezmann deal was at the time for Colchoneros, overall, it’s fair to say that they might not have been able to afford the title challenge they have now or had in 2021 without it.
