Xavi and Laporta apply the stick and carrot tactic with De Jong

BarcelonaBarça need things to happen with Frenkie de Jong before the market closes. The Dutch midfielder has been pointed out internally for weeks more as a precious tool to generate salary margin than as an essential piece in the plans of the technicians. Three reasons support this sad fate for a player who, when 2019 arrived, was called to mark an era at Camp Nou: the insufficient performance he has offered after three seasons, the ascending contract he agreed with Josep’s board Maria Bartomeu and the possibility of signing an interesting capital gain with its sale. With all this in hand, the club began to negotiate more than a month ago with Manchester United an operation to generate a space of between 45 and 60 million between the profit of the sale and the salary saved, a considerable figure to help register new contracts.

But De Jong has taken to the saddle, is refusing to give up on his Barça dreams and, for the time being, is acting like an extra on the first team’s tour of the United States.

Since the transfer to United could not be completed quickly, Barça has redefined the strategy with the Dutchman. The Blaugrana spokesmen take care of the public discourse towards the footballer, but at the same time they do not miss the opportunity to send him messages, with facts and words, in relation to the unsustainable validity of his contract and the slab that this represents in terms of fair play financial In this sense, Xavi Hernández has become accustomed to building phrases of praise towards De Jong’s qualities always accompanied by an adversative in relation to “the club’s economic situation” and “the salary limit”. Egarenc applies the tactic of the stick and the carrot also when deciding the alignments. He has played the Dutchman in the two friendlies on American soil, but not in the core, his ideal position, but in defence. “He can also give us a lot as a central player”, justifies the coach. The explanation would trickle in if he had ever tried it on the axis last season.

“We need to clarify some aspects”

More exaggerated is the contrast in Joan Laporta’s speech every time he talks about De Jong. Publicly, the executive president of Barça treats the young Dutchman as if he were a non-transferable piece. “He is not for sale and I will do everything I can for Frenkie to continue with us”, he came to say at the beginning of the month. “He is our player, we like him a lot and we have not accepted some offers we have received for him”, he said this weekend on the ESPN network. Double ration of carrot for the midfielder, compensated immediately with euphemistic remarks such as “some footballers do not fit our salary parameters” or “we need to talk to Frenkie to clarify some aspects of his situation”.

Barça has committed to strengthening the team this summer, but also to reduce the wage bill to 400 million. Both premises require a sacrifice on De Jong’s part, either in the form of an exit or a considerable lowering of terms. If none of this happens, there may be problems when signing the new faces in the next League. At the end of the month, the club will know what its salary limit is once the management has calculated the impact of the television levers on the Blaugrana accounts. And, depending on the figure, he will know how far he has to pull the strings with De Jong as he negotiates the activation of the third lever: Barça Studios.