Samuel Umtiti's massive Barcelona contract revealed
FT Desk
- 22 Aug 2022 16:31 BST
- 3 min read
Barcelona need to offload players in order to satisfy La Liga's financial regulations, but Samuel Umtiti's contract makes plain why the Catalan club have struggled to find suitors for the out-of-favour Frenchman.
Barca spent more than €150 million on new players this summer, with Raphinha, Jules Kounde and Robert Lewandowski accounting for the bulk of that outlay while Andres Christensen and Franck Kessie arrived on free transfers.
Umtiti spotted at Barcelona's airport, with team training scheduled for this afternoon 👀
Will he stay or go? ✈️pic.twitter.com/pFKDVgXCkM— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) August 10, 2022
The club are emerging from a debt of more than €1 billion, primarily through the activation of "financial levers" which have seen them sell a percentage of future revenues for liquid capital now - hence their summer shopping.
But buying players is one thing; registering them for official competitions is quite another, and Kounde is still not eligible to play for the club more than three weeks after signing from Sevilla.
The Frenchman will likely be registered before the end of the transfer window, but that is dependent on Barcelona selling more players. Frenkie de Jong has long been linked to Manchester United and latterly Chelsea, but Memphis Depay and Umtiti should be the next out of the Camp Nou door.
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Memphis is deciding between offers from Juventus and Tottenham Hotspur before agreeing to rescind his Barca contract, while Umtiti is set to join Serie A new boys Lecce - the deal that Barca would continue to pay his contract but receive add-ons based on performances.
It isn't difficult to see why Lecce have pushed for such a deal. As revealed by Spanish journalist Ruben Uria, Umtiti has a four-year contract left at Barca which is set to pay out a fixed €40m plus €12m in bonuses.
How good is Umtiti?
Very good, was the quick answer to that question, not so long ago. Umtiti started six of a possible seven games as France won the World Cup in Russia in 2018, and he had been a Barca regular until that point following his €25m arrival from Lyon two years prior.
But persistent knee injuries have held up his progress since, and it has now been five years since he started more than 20 La Liga games in a season. Still only 28, the Cameroon-born centre-back could yet prove a steal for Lecce, as long as they steer clear of those wages!
