Lately, no matter how many Frenchmen Barcelona has hired, they haven’t been very happy. Antoine Griezmann left the club this summer, and there is another one at the exit door.
Since joining the ranks of the Spanish giant, it was planned that Samuel Umtiti, along with Gerard Pique, would form the backbone of the defense and a solid bulwark in front of Marc-André ter Stegen.
However, Umtiti was more in the club clinic and at the doctor’s than he was on the field, which is why there has been speculation for a long time about his departure.
For someone who earned the nickname “glass” due to severe injuries, there are not many options… This year, Benfica and Lyon offered him a helping hand, but the robust stopper refused both offers.
Primarily because neither of those two clubs can provide him with the salary he has in Barcelona – 8,000,000 euros ?!
It is actually a salary with a reduction that Umtiti agreed to, and otherwise, he collected as many as 11,500,000 European banknotes a year earlier.
It is clear that he did not even justify such a salary on the field… Umtiti hoped that with the arrival of Xavi, his status could change, but there is nothing of that.
That is why the idea of the Barcelona leader to offer the 28-year-old stopper a breakup in January, even though his contract with the club binds him until the summer of 2023.
The card that Joan Laporta will play with his associates is that there is no place for Umtiti in the club, while in another environment he could play, get minutes and try to get his career back on track.
Catalan “Sport” described such a plan as follows:
- The club wants to explain to Umtiti that the termination of cooperation is good news for him as well, because he is 28 years old and can still find a new environment in which he will play regularly and where he will be able to sign another lucrative contract – reads the text of the Spanish media.
Let’s touch on Barcelona and the French footballers just a little more. As we mentioned, Griezmann left this summer. Lengle is also in the club, who also has no role and minutes for a long time.
There is also Usman Dembele, from whom they are also pulling their hair out in Barcelona because they do not know what to do with the investment of 135,000,000 euros, which is in the last year of the contract, and he also did nothing on the field.
We will see if Barcelona will manage to get rid of Umtiti and thus at least slightly mitigate the damage that threatens to drag the famous club into the average of Spanish and European football…
