Division in Barcelona's dressing room over the salary cuts

There are differing opinions in the Barcelona squad about the club's salary cuts to deal with the coronavirus crisis. Barcelona are in a delicate situation and, like other clubs in La Liga, can temporarily lay off their workers with an 'ERTE'. Bartomeu, however, wants to reach an agreement with the dressing room. It will not be easy. They are proposing a 70% salary cut during the coronavirus lay-off.

Some of the players don't like the proposal at all. They don't understand why president Josep Maria Bartomeu should turn to them when the club has made economic investments in transfers that, they believe, do not make any sense or contribute anything to the club. If the proper management of resources has not been undertaken, they do not understand why they must pay for it.

Other parts of the dressing room believe the club's proposal to be acceptable and something they will think about. Their lawyers are studying it and while they have not yet given the OK they are willing to lower their salaries on a temporary basis.

Finally there is a part of the dressing room who will wait for the Spanish Footballers Association (AFE) to give their opinion before making any decision. Per COPE, the AFE met with the league to work on an agreement in the event that football is not resumed before June 30. In that case players would lower their salary by 10% and the impact for La Liga would be -10%. If there is time to play in June-July, then the AFE would accept playing every 48-72 hours and in exchange, first and second division players would earn 15-20% more than their salary. David Aganzo, AFE president, later denied that but did not say exactly what they were working on.

Messi has already offered 1 million euros to help fund coronavirus fighting charities.