Debt to Barca

Rumour is that we only paid them 10 mil of the combined 15 mil fee for Petit and Zenden last summer and now owe the remaining 5 mil this week. Barca are offering a total of 15-17 mil for Jim of which we would then see 10-12 mil.

Bates now wants UEAF to investigate Barca for tapping Jimmy up and Barca deny that they even want Jimmy in the first place. Likely scenario is that Barca approached us with a low bid and we told them off. They then tapped up Jimmy and got the press to begin speculation. We deny that we want to sell him but are waiting out fot 15-20 mil. Now Barca put out the story that they are still owed money for last season to put the pressure back on us while they deny wanting Jim.

Hopefully the end result is that we pay them the remaining 5 mil (from who knows where), we keep Jim, and they take back Bogarde as punishment for tapping up Jimmy. More likely, we sell them Jimmy and pocket 10 mil of a 15 mil fee, the rest wipes out our debt. We end up with useless Bogarde. Not looking good.

 

I guess you never know

but I would be inclined to believe the SNet report that we owe 5 mil for both of them rather than 5 mil each. I just can't believe that Barca would accept 2 deals where they would only get 1/3 of the money for each player up front (both cost 7.5 mil so if we still owe 5 mil on each we only paid 2.5 each up front). Stranger things have happened though. I will now proceed to bury my head in the sand until the August 31st deadline passes us by. Hopefully no moves will be made by us or bankruptcies declared. I will poke my head out for the Southampton match but that is about all.