Barcelona went through their most frustrating transfer window in years due to the club’s dreadful financial situation, which forced them to offload key players this summer.
A year after giving away Luis Suarez to Atletico Madrid, the Blaugrana have loaned Antoine Griezmann back to Los Rojiblancos and signed Sevilla’s third-choice striker Luuk de Jong – also on loan – as his replacement.
In just a few weeks, Barcelona went from having Lionel Messi and Griezmann in attack to having De Jong and new signing Memphis Depay as their first-choice forwards.
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Their three main signings came at zero cost, as Memphis, Eric Garcia and Sergio Aguero joined on free transfers, while Barcelona became mere observers as the likes of Manchester City, Chelsea, Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester United spent millions of euros strengthening their teams.
Barcelona didn’t even have the financial capacity to renew the contract of the world’s finest player, despite president Joan Laporta spending half a summer reassuring fans that talks about Messi’s renewal were progressing well.
The day the Argentine’s agent and father, Jorge Messi, was going to put pen to paper on a contract extension, Laporta informed him that Barcelona couldn’t afford to retain their captain’s services.
Amid tears, Messi bid farewell to Barcelona and joined Paris Saint-Germain on a free transfer, while the club failed to offload players such as Samuel Umtiti, Philippe Coutinho, Miralem Pjanic and Martin Braithwaite, none of whom were in Ronald Koeman’s plans for this season.
For one reason or another, all three stayed at the club. Coutinho’s injury prevented teams from bidding for the Brazilian, while in the case of Pjanic, no club was willing to cover his high salary. [Marca]
