The impasse goes on. Barcelona wants Frenkie de Jong to leave to free up budget to complete the signings of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, Franck Kessié, Andreas Christensen and Jules Koundé, none of whom have yet officially been registered, and perhaps to make possible the signing of César Azpilicueta. But the 25-year-old Netherlands international is refusing to go for a number of reasons, foremost among them the fact that the club still owes him €17 million ($17.2 million) in deferred wages.
None of this, of course, makes any sense. When de Jong joined Barcelona from Ajax in 2019, he was hailed as the future of the club, and spoke of how playing for the club had been a dream. He seemed like the perfect figure around whom to hang a back-to-basics approach. He’s a technically gifted midfielder—perhaps a halfway house between Xavi, who is now coach, and Sergio Busquets—who had come through at Ajax; he had the perfect lineage for returning Barça to what it used to be, a club based on a Total Footballing philosophy.
Like many of that Ajax side that reached the Champions League semifinals in 2019, though, de Jong has struggled to hit the same heights since. But that is no excuse for how Barcelona has treated him. During the pandemic, he deferred wages, recognizing the club’s parlous financial situation, for which his reward is to be told to leave with no guarantee of when or even if the arrears will be paid. Worse, even as cash is splashed elsewhere, de Jong has been asked to write off some or all of the debt—and potentially take a sizable pay cut on top of it—because of his “love for Barcelona.”
