Barcelona are still searching for sources of income or savings, despite agreeing a deal for defender Inigo Martinez to leave the club. The Basque defender will rescing his contract with the Catalan giants before moving to Al-Nassr in Saudi Arabia.
Martinez is set to sign a two-year deal with Al-Nassr, although he will have a clause in his deal allowing him to leave on a free next summer. That is according to Sport, who say that Martinez will earn around €10m net per season in the Middle East, a significant increase on the €7m that he was earning at Barcelona.
Nevertheless, the €8.4m that Martinez’s exit will free up for Barcelona in their salary limit will not be enough to register either of their new signings in Joan Garcia or Marcus Rashford, as per Marca. There have been previous reports to the contrary, but their information is that while Garcia’s salary would be covered, the extra €5m ammortised from his transfer is not. As Barcelona are over their salary limit, they can only use 60% of the money they save or earn.
After Barcelona temporarily removed the captaincy from Marc-Andre ter Stegen on Thursday, they also removed his squad number, the number one, from his La Liga profile on their website. A sure sign both of the Blaugrana’s ire at his behaviour, rightly or wrongly, and of their intention to give both the number and the starting spot to Garcia.
In addition, Pau Cubarsi has taken Inigo Martinez’s number five jersey. Cubarsi was previously wearing the number two. In addition to Garcia and Rashford, Barcelona still have another five players to register including new contracts. They now have just eight days to find a way to do it.