The Barcelona offer to Frenkie de Jong is an insult to both the player and the game

Frenkie de Jong agreed to defer on his wages. But now he wants to leave, Barcelona want to renege on the agreement they struck with him. That’s bullsh*t.

It takes a degree of audacity to be truly terrible and there can be a point at which – regardless of what you may think of the ethics of whatever  somebody has done – it can be difficult not to stand back and admire the chutzpah.

Barcelona, as we all already know, are an absolute financial mess. One of the biggest in the entire history of the game. In debt to the tune of £1.2bn, they’ve already lost their most iconic player of all time, and now they’ve had to take out the sporting equivalent of an equity release mortgage, but this club – an organisation without any apparent self-awareness – now seems intent, in its desperation to get back to what it assumes to be its ‘rightful’ place, on trashing its own reputation.

The latest chapter in their dismal litany is the treatment of Frenkie de Jong as his proposed transfer to Manchester United continues to drift at a glacial pace towards completion. De Jong has been a Barcelona player since January 2019, but he is owed a somewhat staggering £17m in back wages after he agreed a deferral of his salary for reasons connected to the impact of the pandemic and the club’s financial predicament. It was to be paid at the end of his contract, which was to expire in 2026.

Transfer reporter Jacque Talbot reported that Barcelona have only offered to pay him £3.5m of what he is owed as severance and for him to forego the remainder to facilitate the transfer going through. Meanwhile, Chelsea have entered the chat, with rumours also circulating that they may be hoping to ‘hijack’ the transfer that Manchester United seem to have been working on all summer. Some – Talbot included – have speculated that this is all a game on Barcelona’s part to try and force the transfer over the line, but with a somewhat derisory-looking offer having been made to De Jong, the end result would be the same.

According to James Ducker in the Telegraph, De Jong agreed to reduce his salary by £9.4m for the 2020/21 season and then by £4.3m last season, meaning he is owed £13.7m in basic wages, while he is also believed to be owed a further £3.4m in bonuses for playing in at least 60% of Barcelona’s matches over the previous two seasons. This is money that he is owed.

This would all be galling enough, but the fact that it’s happening while Barcelona are…