Representatives of the club and the lawyers of Barça’s first team met again on Thursday, the date on which the deadline to reach an agreement ended. It has been decided to extend the negotiation period until Wednesday of next week
According to Catalunya Radio, the legal representatives of Futbol Club Barcelona and those of Barça’s first team met again this Thursday to agree on how the salary reduction that the club needs to tie in order to deal with the delicate economic situation is being carried out. At the moment no agreement has been met, and the Barça entity could enter a state of bankruptcy at the beginning of next year. Although the deadline was initially set for today, the club has finally extended the margin to reach an agreement until Wednesday, November 11, which is next week.
Barça now want players to cut their overall salary by 30% and be able to recover this money later, in what has been described as a “temporary salary adjustment process”. Carles Tusquets, president of the Management Board, said that there was a good predisposition by the players.
In general, the staff would be more in favor of discussing the issue with the new president of the club than with the manager but the election scenario in January complicates this option. In this sense, it is not ruled out that players agree to defer the income they should have received in January in order to wait to talk to the new board. Nor can it be ruled out that an agreement will be reached to prolong the negotiations further.
Barça are exploring all possible scenarios to reach agreements with the players and some have been offered the chance to recover what they lose now by acting as club ambassadors when they leave the first team.
Another possible scenario is that, if no agreement is reached, Barça will pull the trigger and execute the salary cut unilaterally, but this path would open the door to the possibility of cases ending in court and, at the club, they want to avoid this situation.
Some players (Piqué, Ter Stegen, Lenglet and De Jong) have already agreed and signed a temporary salary reduction in exchange for extending their contracts with the Barcelona club. The rest of the club’s workers – who are also negotiating their pay cuts – are awaiting the end of these negotiations.
