Barcelona have managed to register their own player just before the deadline
Sergio Agüero has finally been registered as a part of Barcelona’s La Liga squad after Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba reached an agreement with the club to reduce their salaries.
The club’s financial mess has been well documented – years of mismanagement at board level and numerous big money flops eating into the wage bill has plunged the club into approximately €1 billion of debt. This is why, despite him wanting to stay, there was no viable way to keep Lionel Messi this summer.
And so when Memphis Depay and Sergio Agüero joined the club this summer on free transfers, the latter joining mainly to play with Messi, they could not be registered immediately due to the club’s staggeringly high wage bill.
Gerard Piqué was the first senior player to agree to a pay cut with the club, enabling them to register Eric Garcia, Memphis and Rey Manaj.
It was also announced at the time that Busquets and Alba were in negotiations with the club over a pay cut to help register Agüero. Barcelona’s most recent announcement explains that:
“The salary reductions for Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, two of the four first team captains, signed this Tuesday have allowed FC Barcelona to achieve two objectives: the registration of Sergio Agüero with the Spanish Football League (LFP) and to extend the Club’s limit with regards to financial fair play regulations.”
“Sergio and Jordi Alba have agreed to changes in the financial terms of their contracts which included a wage reduction for this season and the deferment of payments for the remaining years.”
Agüero is still out injured and is not expected to make his Barcelona debut for another couple of months, but finally, Barcelona have managed to register their own player merely hours before the deadline.
