In a relaxed conference in the framework of the 17th Congress of the Spanish Association of Sports Law, Jordi Cruyff, before a dedicated audience, revealed that Barça's delicate economic situation has facilitated some of the latest signings made by the club. It is clear that it is not the same to go out and negotiate reinforcements after entering 10,000 million pesetas from Real Madrid for Figo, or after collecting 222 million euros from PSG for Neymar, than to find yourself with empty coffers due to the excessive joys to the time to sign contracts from the previous directive.
In times of fat cows, the sales clubs waited for the Blaugrana negotiators with open arms to empty their pockets, full of money. Thus, between the signings of Overmars, Petit, Gerard or Alfonso, they added 81 million euros, exceeding by 21 those entered by the Figo clause. Gaspart was seen coming with a briefcase full of money and was charged with operations well above the market at that time.
Seventeen years later history repeated itself with the departure of Neymar to PSG in exchange for the 222 million in which the departure of the Brazilian star was encrypted. An amount that was absorbed with the additions of Dembélé, first, and Coutinho, in the subsequent winter market. Between the two, 225 million were invested. An absolutely exorbitant figure for two footballers who, with their irregular performance, did not even nearly justify what was paid for both.
Swimming in abundance is not synonymous with a comfortable negotiation. Mateu Alemany, general director and president of Mallorca for more than two decades, and later CEO of Valencia, often jokes about the lack of resources to sign for both clubs. Quite the opposite, he thought about what was going to happen to him at Barça, where he hoped to manage a portfolio full of money, which the Andratx leader has not seen anywhere, subjected to strict control by the LFP due to the exorbitant state of the payroll of the workforce, which prevented the latest reinforcements from being able to register.
In this contradictory situation, the negotiating skills of the Alemany-Cruyff tandem have developed in a scenario that has been favorable. As Jordi revealed, in the team locker rooms there are no secrets about what each footballer earns in order to know by heart the place each one occupies on the squad's salary scale, in order to be able to squeeze with an advantage in renewals of their respective contracts. So that later they complain when confidentiality is broken when the millionaire amounts of their contracts are made public.
