Reduce salary or be sold: Barcelona give De Jong transfer ultimatum
Cameron Smith
- Updated: 4 Jul 2022 02:07 CDT
- 3 min read
Barcelona have given Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong an ultimatum as his future remains unknown.
De Jong, 25, has been heavily linked with a transfer to Manchester United this summer, with the Red Devils making him their number one target following Erik ten Hag's arrival as head coach.
Ten Hag coached De Jong during the pair's time at Ajax and it's believed that the Dutch head coach wants to build his Man Utd team around the midfielder.
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However, Barcelona have made it clear that they wish to keep hold of De Jong if at all possible, and the player himself is yet to make any indications that he wants to leave.
But, financial issues have come into play. Barcelona's huge debt build-up has crippled the club financially, but they've resorted to selling 10 per cent of the club’s La Liga TV rights for the next 25 years in order to receive a €207.5 million cash injection.
Furthermore, it was reported by BarcaUniversal back in May that Barca had began discussions over selling 49% Barça Licensing and Merchandising for €200 million over a 10 year period.
In addition to this, Mundo Deportivo reported the Blaugrana had also sped up the process of selling a maximum of 49% of Barça Studios. Again, the club were hoping to make €200m from this sale to make a combined total of an additional €400m.
Even so, president Joan Laporta has stated that "there’s also a salary issue and that would have to be adjusted" if De Jong were to stay at the club.
It's now been reported by Sport that De Jong's future is entirely in his own hands, but there's a catch involved: he will either reduced his salary and stay at Barcelona, or be sold to Man Utd.
If De Jong agrees to reduce his weekly wage to an amount Barcelona can afford then he will be allowed to stay, but the club can't keep him on his current salary.
Barcelona's summer business
The Blaugrana will announce Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen on free transfers, while Carlos Soler, Bernardo Silva, Robert Lewandowski, Cesar Azpilicueta, Raphinha, Marcos Alonso and Jules Kounde are all targets and could join.
However, they may be forced to pick and choose which players on that list they can actually afford.
