Faced with a dizzying drop in income as a result of the pandemic and to lighten the wage bill, Barça, chaired by Josep Maria Bartomeu, agreed in October 2020 to renew Frenkie de Jong, Clément Lenglet, Marc André Ter Stegen and Gerard Piqué with the premise to lower their salaries during the 2020-21 season. In return, the players saw their salaries increased from the following season while extending the duration of their contract.
According to club sources, their legal services and another criminal law firm they have consulted see evidence of a crime in this modification of the conditions. They assure that the previous board could incur in unfair administration by increasing the salary impact by 311 million with the operations of these four players. This information coincides with what was published by The Athletic, which already anticipated the irregularities detected by the club in the case of De Jong.
For now, the only one who has renounced the money agreed upon in the renewal is Gerard Piqué, who is even close to signing a new lower contract for the two remaining seasons with the aim of helping the club gain salary margin. Barça is still looking for formulas to register the new signings before the start of the League on Saturday, August 13.
The club has been working on this matter for the last three months to try to reach an agreement with the other three players involved. If a friendly solution is not reached, it is proposed to take the case to the Prosecutor's Office. If the courts agree with the Barcelona entity, the contracts could be declared null and canceled retroactively. That means that previous contracts would come back into force and players could be forced to return the money collected for those extensions.
The reduction in the salaries of these four players represented a direct saving of between 16 and 18 million euros and, as the contracts were lengthened, amortizations were reduced by another 15 million, so the accounting improvement for the 2020-2021 financial year for the previous meeting amounted to more than 30 million. Before the publication of De Jong's information, the previous board responded to the accusations by ensuring that the club's legal services, compliance and the auditor E
The surprise announcement of these deals came just after midnight on October 20, shortly after the Champions League match against Ferencváros. Barça announced the renewals of Piqué until 2024, Ter Stegen until 2025 and Lenglet and De Jong until 2026. A week later, on October 27, the then president Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board announced his resignation .
It should also be remembered that the extension of these contracts came the day before the negotiating table met for the salary reduction to all the club's workers due to the losses derived from the pandemic. A week before, the players sent a joint burofax in which they reported that they did not want to be at the same table as the rest of the employees and that they wanted to negotiate separately given their different salary status.
