The eye-watering cost of Samuel Umtiti's injury-prone time at Barcelona
Stefan Bienkowski
- 29 Jan 2022 12:12 CST
- 5 min read
Few players in the modern game can be as confidently labelled as a busted flush quite like Samuel Umtiti and his time at Barcelona.
After signing for the club in 2016 for €25 million following a tremendous breakthrough spell at Lyon, big things were expected of the central defender.
However, poor form and injury have since come to define the 28-year-old talent to such an extent that the internet was awash with articles to explain why Umtiti was offered a new contract by Barcelona earlier in the month.
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Indeed, Umtiti is now defined by what he hasn’t done rather than what he has in a Barca shirt and when we break down the numbers involved, it really does make for some staggering reading.
The cost of Umtiti’s time at Barcelona
Although the defender recently signed a new contract with the club that involves a reported 10 percent pay cut, that doesn’t account for the five and a half years of salary payments that Umtiti amassed for the club.
Over the course of that period of time (i.e from 2016 through to the end of 2021) Umtiti took home a reported €50.7 million in wages at Barcelona. Which would have made plenty of sense, had he gone on to become an important and vital member of the club’s first team.
Unfortunately for the French defender, injury has dogged much of his time at the Catalan side and as a result Umtiti has missed no less than 99 games over the course of five and a half seasons. And the numbers have stacked up to some incredible sums.
As a result of his numerous injuries, Umtiti has only managed 133 appearances for the club, which translates to 10,739 minutes of game time. Or, in other words, he’s averaged around 22 full 90-minute games for the club each season.
When we compare that to his remarkable salary to date, it suggests that Umtiti has cost Barcelona no less than €381,752 per appearance, €424,326 per 90 minutes and a staggering €4715 per minute of game time on a football pitch for the club.
