Former Barcelona Director Blames ‘Lionel Messi’s Entourage’ for Club’s Financial Crisis | OneFootball

Former Barcelona director Emili Rousaud cited the “embarrassing” behaviour of Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba as a key factor behind the financial issues which continue to plague the La Liga champions to this day.

The aforementioned trio made a combined 1,719 appearances for the Catalan giants during a trophy-laden spell in Barcelona. By the time the COVID pandemic hit in the spring of 2020, robbing the club of matchday income which made up an enormous slice of their overall revenue, Piqué, Busquets and Alba were three of the highest-paid players on the club’s books.

None could match Lionel Messi’s outrageous salary. Yet, Rousaud claims that while the Argentine’s wage was justified, the other members of the squad had ridden Messi’s coattails to earn extravagant sums which their ability didn’t match.

“Barça’s problem was that they had the best player in the world [Messi], and he was the only one who generated the salary he earned,” the former club director explained in his recently released biography, The Faith of the Entrepreneur.

Gerard Piqué and Sergio Busquets were both name-checked by a disgruntled former Barcelona director. / IMAGO/NurPhoto

“But there was pressure from Leo’s players’ entourage—Jordi Alba, Piqué, Busquets—all of them had to have their salaries raised, putting pressure on the president. This met Leo’s needs, and that led to absurd inflation.”

“It’s not that Piqué wasn’t a good defender,” Rousaud continued, “but he wasn’t the best defender in the world, and he was the highest paid. But the model worked as long as they were winning. Every company has to have a certain level of pay equity, and that broke down. Then the pandemic hit, and revenue dropped dramatically, without the tickets.”

Most damningly, Rousaud claims that “Messi’s entourage” were reluctant to offer any financial support to the club. “The players didn’t want to take a pay cut,” he wrote. “That made me a little embarrassed as a fan, not as a director. They didn’t spare a single euro.”

Messi was ultimately forced to leave Barcelona in the summer of 2021 after the club’s finances became so stretched that they couldn’t afford to hand him any type of contract. Barcelona later confirmed that Piqué, Busquets and Alba all accepted “wage reductions” that same year to force through the arrival of Sergio Agüero. “It’s what had to be done,” Piqué shrugged at the time. “We are proud of this decision.”

Barcelona still have to hurdle significant financial difficulties. Just last season, it took the intervention of Spanish government to ensure that Dani Olmo was registered for the second half of the 2024–25 campaign. Nico Williams’s concerns about suffering the same fate were reportedly behind his eventual snub of the club this summer.