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Cruel Summer - Barcelona board to blame for a chaotic transfer campaign

Cruel Summer - Barcelona board to blame for a chaotic transfer campaign

Amidst new reports that they are about to launch a fourth bid for Liverpool midfielder Philippe Coutinho, Barcelona, a club renowned for taking some of the world’s greatest players, has turned into a laughing stock.
 
In what will be remembered as the summer that the Catalan giants lost their supremacy at the top of the football food chain, the blame has to lay firmly at the door of the clubs new hierarchy who have turned a football institution into a travelling circus.
 
Let’s go back to the start of the year when contract talks with Argentine superstar Lionel Messi looked to be stalling; club President Josep Bartomeu assured fans that there was no need to panic and that an agreement was imminent. Moving forward to the summer and with still no agreement in place, the patron went public to explain that Messi had already signed a lucrative new deal at the Camp Nou and that an announcement would be imminent.


 
With the season now under way, there is still nothing signed and Bartomeu has been left with egg on his face. During all this, we witnessed the incredible departure of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain with the 25-year-old Brazilian citing he needed a new challenge. With Barcelona strutting around arrogantly, no contingency for such a loss was put in place and now they face the very real possibility of having a gaping void in the starting XI left unfilled.
 
Neymar has been quick to criticise the board and Messi has backed up his former colleague. Now we have the very real possibility that the world’s greatest player could leave Catalonia next summer on a free-transfer; a situation that many observers find hard to believe.


 
With just over a week of the current transfer window left, Barcelona chiefs look to have gambled massively on a final attempt for Coutinho. An agreement with Nice midfielder Jean Seri has now been scrapped and with no sign of the Blaugrana being able to prize French youngster Ousmane Dembele away from Borussia Dortmund, the recent quotes from defender Gerard Pique that the club had fell alarmingly behind bitter rivals Real Madrid for the first time in a decade, has never rung truer.


Steve Mitchell (@barafundler)