La Liga

Despite last season's humiliating exit to Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League semi-final at Anfield, Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board could look back with a sense of satisfaction at the club's financial performance.

On paper, things looked rosy. Barca leapfrogged eternal rivals Real Madrid to become football's biggest earner at the top of the annual Deloitte Money League for 2018-2019, registering a 22 per cent increase in revenue from the previous year. Their income of €840.8 million was a chunky €83.5 million more than Real Madrid's.

The COVID-19 crisis has changed everything, however. It brings into stark relief several questionable aspects about Barca's finances, their future earning potential and their ability to remain a force on the pitch in elite football.

Football is a volatile business. Leeds United—who once beat Barca in a European Cup semi-final—have been out of the top tier of English football since 2004. It looks as if at least a decade will pass before Manchester United regain the English Premier League crown they last won in 2013.

The fall of the mighty AC Milan—who have won more European Cups than any other club except Real Madrid—is another cautionary tale. They were consistently the third-wealthiest club in football in the middle of the 2000s, but now they're outside football's top 20 earners.

Barcelona—along with their great rivals in European club football—are under threat. The football industry, which remained immune to the 2008 global financial crash, is on the front line this time of a potentially deep global recession. It's being hit by a far-from-perfect storm.

Barcelona have already lost €154 million as a result of the coronavirus crisis, according to a report in La Vanguardia. This is irrespective of whether there is a conclusion to the 2019-2020 La Liga season, which is set to restart in mid-June (according to La Liga President Javier Tebas, the league will lose €1 billion if it fails to finish its remaining games).

Since the Spanish government brought in a lockdown on March 14, Barca's museum, which earned the club €58 million last year, has been shut. The club's superstores in the city—including one they opened last year along La Rambla, the city's famous boulevard—have also been shut. With the prospect of little international tourism for the rest of the year in Spain, their footfall will remain low when they reopen as part of Spain's phased de-escalation.

All over Barca's business, several income streams have either slowed to a trickle or dried up for the rest of the year. There will be no lucrative summer tour in 2020. Their football schools still have a €15 million payment pending for the final third of their season. That income looks lost. The transfer values of their players have likely plummeted.

Worst of all, it's unlikely the 99,000-seater Camp Nou stadium will open its doors again to the public this year, according to several sources, including Tebas. And this is the optimistic scenario.

Who knows how the coronavirus will develop, whether a second wave will hit Europe or if football fans will be able to stomach watching football in empty stadiums on TV. It could demand some experimental thinking, says Simon Kuper, co-author of Soccernomics and an upcoming book on Barcelona.

"The risk with this pandemic is that football has never paused for this long before [even during World Wars]," says Kuper. "Maybe La Liga will start playing again, but if not, you could have people getting used to a life without watching football on TV. Without fans, it's never been tested. We do know that Serie A games [in the 1990s] famously looked terrible on TV because they were played in front of half-empty stadiums.

"One option that might become a reality—crazy as it sounds—is that football decamps to Australia and New Zealand if they can become COVID-free zones. You'd have, say, the Spanish league (and the Bundesliga, the English Premier League, cricket leagues) and its players moving there for six months with a two-week quarantine.

"Their matches could be played in front of full stadiums in Sydney and Melbourne, games which would be seen on TV stations all over the world—rather than having to watch Real Madrid playing at an empty Alfredo di Stefano training ground [as is planned for La Liga's restart to enable the club to accelerate remodelling of its Santiago Bernabeu Stadium]." 

Barcelona's problems are compounded by reckless spending. They recently splurged several-hundred million euros on misfiring stars, including Ousmane Dembele and Philippe Coutinho, while the jury is still out on Antoine Griezmann, who has yet to jell with Lionel Messi in the team's attack.

Barca also incur the highest wage bill of any football club in the world. The squad earns a yearly average of €11 million per player. The percentage of the club's salary relative to their revenue is 69 per cent, which is dangerously high. Real Madrid's, for example, is 52 per cent.

"If you calculate this figure by taking into account player transfers, that percentage increases and goes above 80 per cent," says Victor Font, who has declared he will run for president of Barcelona at the next election. "Barca have the most expensive team on earth. Obviously the fact that you have Messi—who is the best in the world—is [a factor]. The problem is that the club is paying out too much on other players.

"Barcelona haven't managed their finances properly over the last few years since the last election [in 2015]. We've seen that trend deteriorate since the debacle of Neymar's transfer in 2017 with a couple of very expensive, unsuccessful signings. The club has spent €1 billion on transfers that have not returned the types of results the club's fans were expecting. Combine this with poor management of the core structure of the club, and it has put Barca in a difficult position.

"If you add in the pandemic, it has made the situation worse. It's likely the club will try to explain the difficulty in their finances through the COVID-19 pandemic, but the underlying problems were there already. What we need now is a proper plan to better manage the cost structure and create new revenue streams." 

One way to help with a creaking cost structure is to cut the club's wage bill, but it's notoriously difficult to offload aging, out-of-favour footballers from top clubs who still have time to run on their sweetheart contracts. Look at the Gareth Bale saga at Real Madrid.

Or 32-year-old Ivan Rakitic's case at Barcelona. The Croat said in an interview with Mundo Deportivo in April that he felt like "a sack of potatoes" after Barcelona tried to sell him last summer against his wishes. He wants to see out his contract, which runs until 2021.

"Over time, we're going to see a shrinking of middle-tier high-earners," says Ben Lyttleton, author of Edge: What Business Can Learn From Football. "The really high-earners will retain their value, but the middle high-earners will have to take lower contracts at some point. There will be more opportunities for clubs to give younger players a chance to keep the wage bills down.

"We'll see clubs trying to move on players with good deals. We'll see more swap deals, more loans. There will be a change in how the market will operate. There will be opportunities for smart clubs to find value.

"With a player like Rakitic, there are only a certain number of clubs he would go to. Maybe Barca take the hit and say, 'Go to Napoli, and we'll pay half your wages,' going one level below where he is now. That might have to be the solution that works for everyone. It's a complicated situation."

Barcelona's debt is also troubling, especially given the club's ambitious plans for revamping the Camp Nou in what's called the Espai Barca project. There are conflicting reports about the actual debt figure. The club maintains it is €460 million, although elsewhere it has been reported as being as high as €888 million.

"The club's debt is very high," says Font. "It's much higher than what the club explains. It's something we don't understand: why the club is not being fully transparent, especially given the ownership structure of the club. It's not a publicly listed company, but at the same time, it's not owned by the board. There's no single owner. There should be more transparency.

"It's really hard to distil the actual debt [from the annual accounts]. It's also not taking into account any debt or investment that is being made for the Espai Barca project. What also increases the real debt amount are cash advances that some entities have made, for example, if a sponsor signs a sponsorship deal for, say, €10 million a year, and Barca has asked them to advance the cash.

"When you add everything up, our estimate is that the debt is probably around €700 million, which puts the finances of the club in a perilous position, especially because of its limited profitability. The club generates a lot of revenue, but it spends a lot of money, so it does not generate enough cash to pay the debt back. Obviously when you have this type of financial situation at the time you need to build a new team and pay for the Espai Barca project, that's a concern."

Font adds that Real Madrid have been a lot more "prudent" in managing their finances over the last few years, which puts them in a stronger position facing into a downturn: "They've built a war chest."

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The footballer who has most regularly featured on the front cover of Catalonia's sports newspapers over the last few months has been Lautaro Martinez, the Inter Milan and Argentina striker. He's seen as a successor to Luis Suarez at the club, and he enjoys the blessing of Messi, his compatriot. Can Barcelona afford to buy him this summer, though, given the state of its finances? 

"Barca can buy Lautaro," says Joan Josep Pallas, sports editor of La Vanguardia. "This player in particular is possible because the club could, for example, include a player in exchange to reduce the cost of the transfer.

"If Barca could get Arturo Vidal and Rakitic—two players who are in their 30s and on expensive salaries—to switch for Lautaro, who is 22 years old and has a lot of years to justify his transfer fee, it could work. The problem always for the club is to convince players that they have to leave. Of the 19 players in Barca's squad at the moment, none of them finish their contracts this summer.

"Besides, Lautaro's not a player who commands a very high salary, and the impact of his transfer fee—if it's, say, €70 million—will be spread over five years so you're not paying the full amount up front. What worries Barca most at the moment is not the price of footballers, but the salaries of footballers." 

Messi's salary dwarfs those of his teammates. According to an investigation by Der Spiegel based on Football Leaks documents, Messi was guaranteed a yearly salary of €106 million over four years—which accounts for 40 per cent of the club's salary base—when he renegotiated his contract in 2017.

At the time, the scale of his salary prompted one club executive to remark, according to Football Leaks: "The player needs to be aware of how disproportionately high his salary is relative to the rest of the team," which now reads like a chilling note given the financial crisis the club is facing. If they end up in dire financial straits, could the club be forced into a nuclear option? Would they sell Messi?

"If the club let Messi go, he would always be welcome back to Barca, but the directors who let him go would not only have to leave the city of Barcelona, they'd have to leave Europe," says Santi Gimenez, a journalist with Diario AS.

Maybe the club would never sell Messi, but they might be forced to drastically cut the salaries of him and his teammates (the players are already on a temporary 72 per cent pay cut while the season is suspended).

"If Barcelona's revenue decreases by, say, 30 per cent, the club will have to renegotiate players' salaries," says Pallas. "La Liga President Javier Tebas will propose that the clubs reduce their salaries too. It's the only way football can be sustainable for the coming season, because if you lose 30 per cent of your income, you have to trim expenses, especially when Barca's salaries are their biggest expense.

"The players know as well it would be important for their public image. If one player refused to reduce his salary, it wouldn't go down well with fans. It will be the same for all of Spain's premier division clubs—not just Barca."

If Spanish football—which accounts for 184,000 jobs in the Spanish economy—ends up in a deep recession, it will be the country's smaller clubs that hit the rocks. Many will face bankruptcy. But a club like Barca, which is run by its members and is one of the pillars of Catalan society, will endure. Pallas reckons there would be a "revolution" if it disappeared.  

"All these football clubs will survive," says Kuper. "After the last global financial crisis, UD Salamanca went bust [in 2013] and then they were quickly refounded. You can find in all of western Europe about eight or 10 very small clubs that went bust. Big football clubs like Barca don't go bust. Or correction—they do sometimes go bankrupt, but then they just create a new company and put the football club in that [entity] and continue as if nothing happened. That's what happened with Fiorentina in 2002.

"Remember, Barca's revenues have risen six-fold since about 2003. So even if they lost 80 per cent of their revenue, which I don't think anyone expects, that just takes you back to 2003 when players were pretty well paid. It's not like a restaurant where, if you're making losses, the owner closes down the joint.

"In five years' time, Barca will still be one of football's big clubs. Even if it's been a disaster during that period—say football has had a very long pandemic, three years without crowds, revenues have dropped by 70 per cent—Barca would be back to its revenues of 2007 or 2008. So no big deal. They'll still be a big club, paying footballers multimillion salaries.

"But the club will have the obvious on-field problem of the Messi succession. They've built the club around him. It's hard to see—if he's still playing—that he will be as dominant. You also have this whole generation of Busquets, Pique, Messi to replace. Even when you spend €100 million on people like Coutinho, Griezmann and Dembele, it doesn't seem to work out very well. So you could imagine the club is worried about a Manchester United-type decline."

                         

Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz

There was a moment in Spain's opening game of the UEFA Euro 2012 finals when Andres Iniesta—who went on to be named as player of the tournament—was surrounded by five Italian players trying to steal the ball from him. There's a beautiful symmetry to the image, which has become an iconic sports photograph. Iniesta is wearing his blood-red Spain jersey, his five pursuers—who form a near-perfect circle around him—are in the traditional savoy blue of the Azzurri.

"It was like a 'rondo' [piggy-in-the-middle training exercise] with Iniesta in the middle surrounded by all these Italians. It captured the anarchy that he unleashes," says Alfredo Relano, honorary president of Diario AS. "Iniesta represented—along with Xavi maybe—the purest essence of the model of football that gave Spain their successes in two European Championships [2008, 2012] and the World Cup [2010], and Barca the most glorious era in their history.

"He embodied a type of high-quality, very technical football. It didn't matter that he wasn't physically imposing—that he didn't have a big frame or that he hadn't ferocious speed or he wasn't great in the air. He was all about football based on touch. It was something different—this notion that you could play the best football in the world with total disregard for physique. In all the years I've been reporting football, I never thought it possible you could win this way.

"I remember a phrase that Cesar Luis Menotti [Argentina's 1978 FIFA World Cup-winning coach] once said: 'Spain had to decide between being a bull and being a 'torero' [bullfighter].' A torero weighs 70 kilos and a bull 500 kilos. Spain chose to play like the torero and it ended up winning everything with all these short-sized players. It wasn't only Iniesta—it was David Silva, Juan Mata, David Villa and all these other small players—but it was Iniesta who fundamentally represented that idea. He imposed himself because of science not because of strength."

Iniesta's career with Spain and Barcelona—the club he joined as a 12-year-old, ultimately going on to play on the first team for 16 years following his debut under Louis van Gaal in 2002—was extraordinary. It includes nine La Liga titles, four UEFA Champions League winners' medals and a historic trio of consecutive titles with Spain at international level. He is also immortalised because of two unforgettable goals.

"Sure, he had the luck to score some legendary goals—at Stamford Bridge [90th-minute goal against Chelsea that qualified Barcelona for the 2009 UEFA Champions League final] and Johannesburg [extra-time winning goal against the Netherlands in 2010 FIFA World Cup final]," says Ramon Besa, a friend of Iniesta's and co-author of his autobiography, The Artist: Being Iniesta.

"I remember Pep Guardiola once said: 'In the foot of Iniesta rests the faith of 'barcelonismo' (Barcelona's football fans).' I'm sure Vicente del Bosque felt the same way about 'la seleccion' [the Spain national football team]. If Spaniards had to select a player to score the winning goal in a World Cup final, Iniesta would probably be among the most voted for, if not the most. I have always said that Iniesta played the role of Messi in Spain's national football team."

Iniesta will forever be linked with Messi and their club team-mate, Xavi Hernandez (the three famously shared a podium together at the Ballon d'Or awards ceremony in January 2011). All three of them are small men. All three of them have incredible ball control. Marti Riverola, a former team-mate at Barcelona, makes an interesting distinction about the two Barcelona and Spain midfielders. 

"Xavi and Iniesta had different characteristics," says Riverola. "Xavi was more about positional play—about getting on the ball, keeping it, and holding a position—whereas Iniesta wants to attack an opposition's defensive line. Xavi kept the ball, but Iniesta goes forward, which creates more chances and often ends in a goal. Iniesta was more vertical [direct] than Xavi. Iniesta wants to attack. He wants to score. His mind is always thinking about breaking between the lines.

"Iniesta had something special. With his first touch, Iniesta always knew what way he was going to go. He could turn and change the rhythm of the play, leaving you trailing behind in his wake. It was impossible to take the ball off him. He has eyes at the back of his head. When you played with him in training, he was constantly looking behind himself so he always knew the next move of opposition players. It makes a difference because it means he's always two seconds ahead of every play."

Iniesta's mesmerising ball control is possibly his defining trait. Few, if any, players from the modern era are as graceful on the ball. Few have had the ability to master it so well in tight spaces, to elude the snapping tackles of defenders, to manoeuvre it at will, as if in charge of the proverbial ball on a string, always it seems with a fraction of a second to spare.

"He's just an exquisite technical footballer," says Besa. "There is no player like him to master that relationship between time and space on a football field. He's so elegant on the ball; it's almost impossible to take it off him when he has it. He has a love affair with the ball that I've never seen matched in another player, with the possible exception of Michael Laudrup.

"Other players may also have been very skilful, like Zinedine Zidane, but Iniesta can't rely on protecting the ball with his body [like a bigger, stronger player can], which meant he had to become an escapologist—so he could disappear into thin air. When you watch him, he glides around the pitch like he's skating."

Iniesta has been forthright in revealing his struggles with mental health, which he goes into in detail in his autobiography. He is universally regarded as one of the gentlemen of the game. In almost 900 official football games, he has never been sent off. But the "Mr Nice Guy" label belies a steely determination and focus.

"Guardiola often said that 'Iniesta was like the perfect son'—the perfect player, the perfect human," says Riverola. "He never complained, never caused trouble, always on time, listened to the coach when he spoke. He doesn't have any tattoos. He's a model professional. At La Masia, he always did everything he could to develop himself and become the best player he could be. He was never distracted by a social life or celebrity. He only ever wanted to improve himself as a footballer. 

"At training every day, he was always 100 per cent focused. When you see it in perspective—after my career in football with different clubs—you appreciate the effort he put in. Sometimes, players are tired or they're not in the mood to go training, but Iniesta was always showing you that you have to be focused every day and do yourself justice.

"You can see at Barca, that kind of focus is dwindling year by year. Ten years ago, players used to go 100 per cent in training. Now, it seems, they think they only have to show up on Sunday for matches. It's why they're not getting the same results as in the past. Iniesta grew up with a philosophy of working hard, which other players at La Masia had, too. It's why Guardiola's Barca team was always winning games 6-0, 5-0, 7-1—not because they wanted to ridicule opposition teams, but because they wanted to give 100 per cent of themselves."

"It's definitely notable that Iniesta has always been so kind and such an upright character," adds Relano. "In Spanish, we talk about certain players having a sense of cunning—'la mala leche' (bad milk). It usually helps—the enormous ambition, the great players have. Traditionally, they're predators. They will stop at nothing.

"But it's not a characteristic you associate with Iniesta. After 15, 16 years playing at the top level, I can't recall an unsavoury incident, when he acted badly or lashed out against another player or against a referee, or made a rash declaration. Nothing. He always behaved in an exemplary manner. Nobody could imagine him being conspiratorial. He imbues a certain kind of purity and innocence. How somebody like that can reach the top is a very striking element about his career."

After departing the stage at Barcelona in 2018, Iniesta has chosen Japan for his latest adventure. No other international player—in a country that has hosted the likes of Zico, Diego Forlan and Spain's greatest striker David Villa, an erstwhile team-mate of Iniesta's at Vissel Kobe—has had as profound an impact on the J1 League as Iniesta, argues Sean Carroll, who has been covering Japanese football locally for over a decade. 

"Iniesta's arrival was bigger than that of other international players because he's one of the best players of his generation," says Carroll. "Some of the other stars who turned up were winding down their careers. He's obviously not as young as he once was, but to pick up a player that famous who had achieved as much as he had—direct from Barcelona—was a massive thing for everyone in Japanese football.  

"And he has delivered. He still dominates games, controlling the tempo. You can see he's a cut above the rest of the players he's playing against. He won the Emperor's Cup on New Year's Day this year. That meant that Vissel Kobe qualified for the Asian Champions League. That's what it's all about for the club's owners, Rakuten. It was the first major trophy the club had ever won."

Football in Japan has been suspended because of the coronavirus crisis, as it has elsewhere around the globe, but if and when it resumes, don't discount Iniesta—who celebrates his 36th birthday on May 11—adding to his trophy haul. We can't wait to see him renewing his love affair with the ball.  

     

Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz

Barcelona have been in a difficult place this season. On the pitch, their performances have been patchy, as they have struggled psychologically to get over last year's humiliating 4-0 defeat to Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League semi-final second leg at Anfield—the latest in several capitulations in the knockout stages of the competition in recent years.

Off the pitch, the club have been mired in controversy and infighting. Every month, it seems, team captain Lionel Messi surfaces on social media to berate the club's hierarchy. Before the suspension of the league in March, owing to the coronavirus pandemic, Barca's fans had been waving handkerchiefs at the Camp Nou in protest at club president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who is dogged by a scandal involving social media company I3 Ventures, which had allegedly been smearing his enemies, including Messi and Gerard Pique.

The one shining light to emerge from the season so far has been the eruption of Ansu Fati.

He has broken several records since his La Liga debut as a 16-year-old in August. These include becoming the youngest scorer in the history of the UEFA Champions League when he fired in a goal from outside Inter Milan's box at the San Siro Stadium in December.

Fati's first La Liga goal for the club—which made him the youngest Barcelona player in history to score in the league—came within five minutes of appearing as a substitute against Osasuna at their El Sadar Stadium in Pamplona, a famously tight and inhospitable ground for visiting teams. 

It was only Fati's second game for Barca after a brief cameo the week before against Real Betis in La Liga. Notably, it took Messi nine games before the 18-year-old scored in an official game for Barcelona in 2005. Fati leapt to nod in Barcelona's first goal in a 2-2 draw. The cross for the goal, which came from Carles Perez, wasn't travelling at speed, but Fati managed to power it home from distance.

"I was working with Onda Cero radio here in Pamplona for the game," says Inaki Lorda, a Spanish football journalist. "After the final whistle, I went down to see the players. His physique really impressed me.

"He was still only 16 years of age at this stage, but you could see how strong he was, even though he still has more to grow. He's not a frail young guy like, say, Riqui Puig. The header Ansu scored was evidence of this—the spring he made to get on the end of it in between two big central defenders was incredible. You could see he has something special."

Barcelona's then-coach Ernesto Valverde—who was labouring with an injury crisis to several of his attacking players, including Messi, Ousmane Dembele and Luis Suarez—started Fati against Valencia in the next round of league games. Fati lit up the Camp Nou with a virtuoso display, scoring within two minutes of kick-off.

Albert Puig—who manages Albirex Niigata in Japan as well as heading up APFC, a coaching methodology company—was the man responsible for bringing Fati to Barcelona in 2012 when Puig worked as director of La Masia, Barcelona's famous youth academy. 

"I love this guy Ansu Fati," says Puig. "He's a very versatile footballer. He can play in all of the attacking positions—at 9, 11, 7, 10. He's also fast and he has a great imagination. It comes from playing street football where he grew up in Africa. If you travel to Africa, you'll understand what I'm talking about—this innate football intelligence.

"I lived in Africa for a year. It produces a certain kind of player. It's different with kids in the western world who live more comfortable lives and maybe understand the language of football, but more in an academic way.

"When Ansu was growing up, he got to spend so much of his time playing freely in [pick-up] games. It's the ideal way to create a player who can improvise. He's very smart. In Spanish, we say a player like Ansu is 'espabilado'—sharp as a tack. He sees instinctively things on the pitch other players don't pick up on because he spent so much of his childhood playing outdoors in Africa."

After a blistering start to the season, the Guinea-Bissau native's progress has stalled, however. After scoring a brace in a league game against Levante at the Camp Nou in early February, his chances under new head coach Quique Setien—who has favoured emergency signing 28-year-old Martin Braithwaite as an impact player—have largely dried up. 

"Setien needs guarantees," says Lorda. "Ansu Fati is very exciting, but he's not a guarantee. Braithwaite is proven—he's a finished article. He played well at Leganes before joining Barcelona. He's an interesting signing. It made sense to get him. He's not elite—he's not an Antoine Griezmann or a Suarez or Messi—but he's a good footballer and he's the kind of player that fills out a squad well. He knew from day one that he's not a guaranteed starter.

"Braithwaite gives Setien a level of confidence. Setien has shown that he trusts, too, in veteran players like Arturo Vidal and Ivan Rakitic. I'm sure he'd love to give more chances to Ansu Fati and, say, Riqui Puig, but Barcelona at the moment is a very unsettled place, so he'd prefer to put his trust in the old guard." 

Braithwaite's arrival and the imminent return from injury of the more senior Dembele, who also plays in Fati's position, has left Fati's career at a crossroads. There will also likely be further arrivals this summer. Already, for example, Barcelona paid a reported fee of €31 million in January for the Portuguese starlet Trincao, another wide player, who is set to join the squad next season from Braga.

Last week, Diario Sport reported that Borussia Dortmund are interested in Fati for next season as a possible replacement for Jadon Sancho (if, as suspected, he's sold to an English Premier League club). Fati's profile fits the Bundesliga club—fast and a pure wide player—which is also renowned for developing young talent.  

The possible return of Neymar Jr. to the Camp Nou or the signing of Lautaro Martinez—who has long been linked with a move from Inter Milan as a long-term replacement for Suarez—adds to the uncertainty around Fati's prospects in the Catalan city next season.

"There are so many factors that will affect Ansu Fati's position on Barcelona's squad next season," says Juan Bautista, a journalist with Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia. "If Neymar arrives or not. If the club signs Lautaro. Does Suarez have one more good year? It will be difficult for Ansu to get minutes. It would be easier for him if, for example, Dembele left.

"There are many variables at play. The club also needs to find a solution for Philippe Coutinho, who will be returning from a loan spell. Because of the coronavirus and a deflated transfer market, it will be difficult to sell players if Barca insist on not selling players at cut-price rates.

"To loan out Ansu is a logical solution when you've got players like Dembele and Coutinho who cost so much money. You either sell them cheaply or else they'll have to stay. Nobody is going to pay over €100 million for a player now, especially for a player who is as injury-prone as Dembele or as big a failure as Coutinho was at the Camp Nou. Only an English Premier League team could possibly afford the sums of money required."

Barcelona will be anxious not to let Fati's development run aground. He's already become their 10th-most valuable player, according to Transfermarkt, a German football analysis website. It's vital that he gets the oxygen of game time to continue his progress, but he'll have to compete with several heavyweights for precious minutes next season. 

"If Ansu stays, the club will have to convince him he will be a useful player on the squad," says Bautista. "What can't happen is that he spends a year without playing or only playing a tiny bit. At his age, he needs to develop. 

"In Barcelona, he's often compared with Messi, but there is only one Messi. Even Messi in the summer when he first made Barca's first-team squad in 2005, there were a lot of negotiations afoot. I remember, for example, Espanyol were interested in getting Messi on loan. 

"Then Messi played for Barca in the Joan Gamper Trophy [a pre-season tournament] against Juventus. He wowed their coach, Fabio Capello, who asked Barca's coach, Frank Rijkaard, if he could take him on loan. It opened Barcelona's eyes and they realised: 'We have to keep this guy.'

"Maybe something similar will have to happen with Ansu. He'll have to break down the wall and say, 'I'm very good and I want to play more. Either you get rid of me or you find a solution for me.' Let's see."

     

Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz

Atletico Madrid defender Kieran Trippier was charged with misconduct by the Football Association on Friday for allegedly violating betting rules.

According to Sky Sports, the charges stem from "alleged betting around" July 2019, which is when Trippier transferred from Tottenham Hotspur to Atletico Madrid.

Per Rob Harris of the Associated Press, Trippier has denied the allegations, saying: "I want to make it clear that while a professional footballer, I have at no stage placed any football related bets or received any financial benefit from others betting."

In a statement, the FA specifically explained which two betting rules Trippier is alleged to have breached:

"Rule E8(1)(a): a participant shall not bet, either directly or indirectly, or instruct, permit, cause or enable any person to bet on - (i) the result, progress, conduct or any other aspect of, or occurrence in or in connection with, a football match or competition; or (ii) any other matter concerning or related to football anywhere in the world, including, for example and without limitation, the transfer of players, employment of managers, team selection or disciplinary matters.

"Rule E8(1)(b): where a participant provides to any other person any information relating to football which the participant has obtained by virtue of his or her position within the game and which is not publicly available at that time, the participant shall be in breach of this Rule where any of that information is used by that other person for, or in relation to, betting."

The 29-year-old Trippier has made 19 appearances for the England national team during his career.

Trippier worked his way up through the Manchester City academy from a young age and went on to spend time at Barnsley, Burnley and Tottenham before transferring to Atletico Madrid last year.

He made 19 league appearances for Atletico Madrid during the 2019-20 season before the La Liga campaign was suspended because of the coronavirus pandemic. Atletico are a disappointing sixth in the table with 11 wins, 12 draws and four losses for 45 points in 27 matches, but they did make it through to the UEFA Champions League quarter-finals after beating holders Liverpool in the round of 16.

Fellow English footballer Daniel Sturridge was found guilty of two betting violations last year, and while he was initially suspended for six weeks and fined £75,000, it was announced in March that he would be banned from football through June 17.

Richard Witschge is emphatic. Did the former Netherlands winger see any signs that Zinedine Zidane would go on to become a successful coach during the three years they spent playing together at Bordeaux?

"No," Witschge tells Bleacher Report. "I didn't think so. Because he was very...not shy, but he didn't want the attention. I played for three years with him at Bordeaux, and he went on to be one of the best in the world. But I didn't know that he was going to become a coach."

Witschge's remarks reflect a common refrain among Zidane's former team-mates. It can be little surprise that many of them did not see the Frenchman's transformation coming when the man himself has admitted that after hanging up his boots in 2006, moving to the dugout could not have been further from his mind.

Yet move to the dugout he did, dipping a toe in the water at Real Madrid as sporting director, assistant coach and manager of the club's reserve team before taking the plunge in January 2016 after Rafael Benitez was sacked as head coach. Even his most ardent admirers could not have predicted the success that would follow, as Zidane led Madrid to three consecutive Champions League triumphs (an unprecedented feat for a coach), as well as a pair of FIFA Club World Cup crowns and, in 2016-17, a first La Liga success in five years.

When he returned to the Bernabeu for his second stint as head coach in March 2019, it was as one of the most decorated coaches in the game.

Zidane's own initial reluctance to become a coach, allied to a commonly held perception that he was not manager material, makes the success he has enjoyed all the more surprising. But take a closer look at his extraordinary playing career, and it transpires that as he made his way in the game, elements of his future vocation were falling into place without him—or anybody else—even realising.

He first met David Bettoni, who works as his assistant at Madrid, when they were playing together in the youth ranks at his formative club, Cannes. Stephane Plancque, Madrid's opposition analyst, first crossed his path as a team-mate at Bordeaux. Zidane first encountered Antonio Pintus, the fitness coach he would later hire at Madrid, when he joined Juventus from Bordeaux in 1996. The leading man may have been slow to express an interest in the starring role, but the supporting cast was already waiting in the wings.

As a player, Zidane was famously undemonstrative, a silent, brooding figure gliding balletically through opposition defences, the mask of inscrutability only slipping during the episodic outbursts of violence that pockmarked his career. But beneath the surface, he was watching, listening and absorbing in a manner that would not become fully apparent until he made the transition to coach.

"With hindsight, you can understand why he became a coach," says Madrid-based sports journalist Frederic Hermel, whose biography of Zidane—entitled simply Zidane—was published last year. "He was a sponge. He listened an awful lot. He wasn't someone who spoke very much, but he listened and he observed."

Seen from a distance, Zidane's taciturn nature might have seemed an obstacle to a career as a top-level coach, but those who have worked with him closely say that rather than a weakness, it is merely an indication that he values listening over speaking.

"He stores things up so he can then reproduce them," Guy Lacombe, one of Zidane's first coaches in the Cannes youth academy, told So Foot in 2017. "It's his first quality, furthermore, and the one that makes him the man he is: a listener who soaks up the words of others and knows how to learn. You don't find that very often."

While he may have been reserved in day-to-day life, Zidane took centre stage on the pitch, first at Cannes and then at Bordeaux, where he emerged as the most talented player in the French game. He was only 23 when he helped Bordeaux reach the UEFA Cup final in 1996, but in a sign of his influence, Witschge remembers him coming into the changing room to "pump up the team" ahead of the first leg against Bayern Munich, for which he was suspended. (Bordeaux lost 2-0 in Munich in Zidane's absence, and he was powerless to prevent a 3-1 defeat when he returned for the second leg a fortnight later.)

In spite of his tender age, there were also signs that he already possessed strong convictions about how football should be played.

"He liked attacking, attractive, technical football," recalls Witschge, who had previously played for Ajax and Barcelona. "Good football. That's how he played. He always said he liked the style of Ajax and also Barcelona at the time, the style of Johan Cruyff. We talked about it, the style of football and how the youth teams played at Ajax. He was interested in those kinds of things."

Whatever Zidane might have thought he knew about football, he received a rude awakening upon arriving at Juventus in the summer of 1996. He was shocked by the intensity of the fitness drills he encountered in his first pre-season, and Portuguese left-back Dimas, who joined Juve from Benfica a few months later, recalls being similarly taken aback himself.

"To tell you the truth, it was a nightmare, physically," Dimas tells Bleacher Report. "For the Italians, it was their day-to-day. They were examples. Guys who'd been there for years: [Ciro] Ferrara, [Moreno] Torricelli, [Angelo] Di Livio, [Attilio] Lombardo, [Gianluca] Pessotto. I can't think of an Italian player who was a lazy guy. Even [Alessandro] Del Piero, with all his quality, worked like an animal. You just had to do it too. It helped me be a better player, and it surely helped Zidane be a better player as well."

Working under lead fitness coach Giampiero Ventrone, Pintus helped to set the gruelling tempo of the squad's physical work. Two decades later, Zidane appointed him as his strength and conditioning coach at Madrid in 2016, and the Italian's exacting fitness sessions laid the foundations for the league and Champions League double that would follow the season after.

Zidane also used his understanding of the game's physical side to convince Cristiano Ronaldo that sitting out occasional league games would enable him to hit peak form in the Champions League knockout rounds, as the Portuguese forward did to spectacular effect in each of his last two seasons at the Bernabeu.

Beyond the energy-sapping work that he had to put in on the training ground at Juventus, what stuck with Zidane was the winning culture at the club. Head coach Marcello Lippi created an environment in which only the highest standards would be tolerated, and just as for his France team-mate Didier Deschamps, who arrived in Turin two years before him, it had a lasting impact on Zidane's conception of the game.

"It was in Italy that he learned about top-level competition in every sense," Hermel tells Bleacher Report. "He learned about competitiveness as a player in Italy, and he also learned what it took to plan a season, with lots of physical work in the summer and again just after the winter break. As a coach, he's an Italian."

By the time Zidane joined Madrid in the summer of 2001 in a transfer that made him the most expensive player in football history, he was already a world and European champion with France, a double Serie A champion, a Ballon d'Or winner and a two-time FIFA World Player of the Year. The unforgettable volley he scored against Bayer Leverkusen in Glasgow at the end of his first season, which gave Madrid their ninth European Cup, further cemented his legacy as an all-time great.

As he made his way through the Madrid youth ranks in the early 2000s, Alvaro Mejia idolised Zidane from afar. The young centre-back broke into Madrid's first-team squad during the 2003-04 season and discovered that although Zidane would make his displeasure plain when he felt the team's performance levels were not up to scratch, he was also eager to pass on advice to younger players.

"I remember some games when he was very upset," Mejia tells Bleacher Report. "Like the Champions League quarter-final against Monaco [in 2004, which Madrid lost on away goals]. He had the character of a winner, and he would show that, even in training. When the situation was going wrong, he was always the first to speak to the players and say, 'Hey, what's going on here?'

"But I also remember many times him coming to me and giving me advice on how to read the game or how to be ready for certain things. Like how to break a line with a pass. Never loud or shouting at me in a bad way. If he saw something from you that was not good, he'd come to you and tell you in a quiet way, to try to improve you."

Zidane's achievements on the pitch, coupled with the relationships he formed with key Madrid players while working as Carlo Ancelotti's assistant in the 2013-14 campaign, meant that by the time he was appointed as Benitez's successor in early 2016, he already had the full respect of the changing room. By intelligently cultivating those changing-room bonds, he laid the foundations for the staggering success that would follow over the next two-and-a-half years.

From a tactical perspective, Zidane has not reinvented the wheel. His approach is all about creating a solid defensive structure and granting his attacking players liberty to express themselves.

Hermel, who has gotten to know Zidane well during the Madrid coach's 19 years in the Spanish capital, describes him as a tactical "pragmatist" whose reluctance to discuss his team's tactics in public reflects a belief—developed during his time in Italy—that "secrecy is a part of strategy." Still scarred by his experiences of having to sit through interminable team talks as a player, Zidane keeps his tactical instructions punchy and to the point.

"When I was a footballer, I hated it when the coach gave long team talks," he tells Hermel in Zidane. "It was the same for my team-mates, who stopped listening after 10 minutes. So today, when I have to speak to a player, I restrict myself to one or three instructions and always finish with, 'Now go and enjoy yourself on the pitch.' Nothing more, nothing less."

Where Zidane excels as a coach is in reading the mood in the changing room and transmitting his own personal calmness to his players. For Dimas, who spent two years playing alongside Zidane at Juventus, it is an approach redolent of the way Lippi went about his work.

"I think he learned this with Lippi," says the former Portugal international. "Because Lippi was this type of coach. Very calm. Very aggressive when he had to take big decisions. But most of the game, he'd give you the tranquillity of saying, 'You guys are playing and you know what to do.' That's what I see [with Zidane]. He's not always on top of his players. He lets them do their thing. When there's a goal, he shows emotion. But he tries to give calmness to the team to let them play."

Mejia, who left Madrid in 2007 and is now playing in Qatar, adds: "As a player, he always found the best way to speak to other players, and as a coach, he's doing the same thing. He gets control of the changing room through speaking to the players, and on the other hand, he has the winning character that he gives to his players. It's the perfect balance."

An iron fist in a velvet glove. Just as he was as a player, so Zidane is as a coach.

A few weeks ago, a physiotherapist called to the house of one of La Liga's stars for a treatment session. As detailed by El Mundo, the physio was stopped at the door by the player's wife: without evidence of a negative coronavirus COVID-19 test, the physio wasn't going to be let inside their house; she didn't want her children to be put at risk. 

Professional football in Spain is at a crossroads. Having suspended La Liga—after an Eibar vs. Real Sociedad game on 10 March—there are plans afoot to restart the league on one of three dates: May 29, June 6 or June 28 (with a view to finishing the league by the end of July, ideally leaving August free to conclude UEFA's European club competitions).

Not everyone agrees that it should go ahead, however. While other leagues, including England, Germany and Italy have roadmaps for a return of football, the remainder of the 2019-2020 season in the Netherlands, for example, has been cancelled.

"The problem is that the Spanish football industry badly needs the return of league football for financial reasons," says Kike Mateu, a journalist with Las Provincias, who contracted the virus while reporting on the UEFA Champions League match between Atalanta and Valencia at the San Siro in February but is now happily recovered. 

"If the season is cancelled, there's millions of euros, particularly with television rights' income, that will be lost. Football clubs need the league to return to action, but if you talk to footballers, some don't want to return to play. They want to wait, sit out the summer, and go back playing in September—like in Holland—when it will be safer.

"At the end of the day, premier division footballers are big stars, they're not like the rest of us who need to work. They feel a lot safer in their houses, so many of them would prefer not to play, but there is a lot of people interested in the return of football for money reasons. This has created an open conflict between the league and the players." 

There's a lot of cash on the line. According to Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, as much as €1 billion will be lost if the league doesn't finish its season. There are few—if any—countries in the world where football is as important to the economy as in Spain. It is estimated that the sport accounts for 1.37 per cent of GDP (and almost 200,000 jobs).

The stakes are high. Spain has suffered well over 20,000 deaths from the coronavirus, which is the third-highest death toll in the world behind the United States and Italy. Several prominent players and coaches have voiced their concerns about a premature return to play. They include Gerard Moreno, Villarreal's Spanish international striker, who said last week in an interview with EFE (h/t El Desmarque): "When you see the daily rate of deaths and contagions, it doesn't enter my mind to return playing. Thinking about [it] is inappropriate."

"I think that the players' concerns are totally understandable in terms of their own safety," says Damia, a former Barcelona footballer who works as a coach with the Catalan football federation, "but they will never have 100 per cent guarantees that it's safe to go training and back playing matches [until there is a vaccine]. Their concerns are valid, but as long as all the protocols for a return to training are controlled, the players shouldn't be too worried. It's my opinion.

"My feeling is that in general footballers want to return if the safety precautions are OK. Most—if not all—of them have had their salaries reduced. A football career is short. Of course they're not going to be happy because the circumstances will be a lot different than they were two months ago, but they will want to finish the season, and hopefully start next season in September in different conditions." 

"I understand [their worries]," adds Luis Miguel Ramis, a former Real Madrid player, who guided Albacete into the playoffs for promotion to the premier division last season. "We're all scared—not just the footballers, especially with the children in our families.

"There are measures you should take to avoid infection. ... The security measures that La Liga proposes should give us enough confidence to return to training. If a footballer doesn't want to train because he's afraid—even when the situation gets better—he'll have to talk to his club about it or leave it. You can't force anyone.  

"The fear we all have will disappear little by little while the situation continues to get better, but I understand that players are asking for the maximum level of security possible—not only for themselves, but for the clubs' employees, coaching staff, for their families. We just need to wait a bit longer for things to improve."

The details of La Liga's protocols for a return to training—which ideally would continue for a month before matches resumed—are meticulous. They consist of four stages. The preliminary stage would be testing: to test for the virus and to see the level of immunity built up by some of the players.

Several premier division squads, for instance, have players who tested positive for the virus in March, including Alaves, Espanyol and Valencia. Players would receive daily serology and antibody tests. If a player tests positive, he will be isolated. 

Training would resume in three phases: two weeks of individual training, where training times would be staggered so there would be a maximum of six players on a pitch at any one time. No more than two players would be allowed in the gym at the same time.

Coaching staff would have to wear gloves and face masks, while players would also be required to do so until they get onto the pitch. After training, they would go straight home to shower, bringing with them the gear required for the following day's training in sealed, biodegradable bags.

This would be followed by a phase of small group sessions before the final phase of full-squad sessions. During these phases, players wouldn't be allowed to return home—they'd be cocooned at their club's training ground, residency or a nearby hotel. There would be no communal social areas—as is common, for example, at pre-season training camps. Players would have to return to their rooms after each training session.

There is also a loose end to tie up before returning to training. Over the last few days, agents have been unable to answer a recurring question from their players: are their lungs (and future playing careers) at risk, as scientific studies from Hong Kong and Wuhan have detected loss of up to 30 per cent in some recovered coronavirus patients?

Matchday protocol has yet to be agreed too. According to Rafael Ramos, president of the Spanish Association for Football Team Doctors, footballs and playing surfaces would have to be sterilised before games, at half-time and after matches. There would be at least a 72-hour gap between games.

Matches would also be played behind doors. In fact, Tebas has hinted that it is unlikely there will be fans at La Liga's games again until 2021. Inevitably, the thought of playing games without fans will take from the experience—although some fans are trying to be philosophical about this imposition.

"If games have to be played without fans, so be it," says David Gonzalez, a season ticket holder at Atletico Madrid and president of Atletica Mostoles, one of Atletico's supporters' club.

"Obviously the first thing we have to think about is people's health. Until they find a very good way to manage this virus—like a card to prove you've immunity—or a vaccine, it will be very difficult to have games with fans in the terraces. 

"Of course, it would be very strange to see games on television in front of the empty stadiums—if that happens, but it would be a small step forward towards some degree of normality returning. It'd be better than nothing."

Footballers, too, would find it odd. There is an adrenaline rush that comes from playing in front of 50,000 manic fans and the feeling of scoring a goal in a packed stadium like the Camp Nou or, say, Valencia's fabled Mestalla with its steeply elevated stands.

"I remember when I played with Real Betis our stadium was closed for a few games [in 2007]," says Damia. "We had to play [Sevilla] at Getafe's stadium, as a neutral venue, and it was horrible. It's not the same at all for players. The pressure is not there. Your motivation drops. It's so strange.

"You lose the advantage of the support you get from a home crowd. You're not screaming at each other. You can really feel the difference in the atmosphere. Professional football has been built for something, and the main thing is the show—the spectacle. When you can see the whole stadium is empty, it's just sad." 

If the season is concluded over the summer, Real Madrid will likely play their home games at the Alfredo Di Stefano Stadium—which is at their Valdebebas training facility on the outskirts of Madrid—to facilitate construction works at the Santiago Bernabeu Stadium. 

Real Madrid's reserve team, Castilla, normally plays at the 6,000-seater stadium, which uses the same grass as the Bernabeu and has the same pitch dimensions, too.

"Not to play in front of your fans will be a problem for everybody," says Ramis, who is a former manager of the Castilla side. "In the case of Real Madrid, it will be the same. It will be a drawback for home games. When the Bernabeu is full of madridistas, it's a very intimidating place to play.

"If stadiums can't have fans, though, it makes sense for Real Madrid not to play at the Bernabeu—not only to facilitate the renovations that will be happening at the Bernabeu, but because of the greater expenses that comes with opening a bigger stadium when fans won't be allowed to come in anyway.

"The Di Stefano Stadium has perfect dimensions. It's more protected and isolated from a hygiene point of view. The players will feel more comfortable playing there than in a big stadium that is empty. It seems a good idea to me." 

For now, things are up in the air. In his daily coronavirus briefing on Sunday, Spain's health minister Salvador Illa sounded a pessimistic note, saying: "I cannot say now if professional football will be able to restart before the summer. It would be reckless of me."

La Liga's plans to use daily coronavirus testing kits—which requires government approval—have been criticised by Spain's players' association, AFE, which argues there is a greater need for the tests to be used elsewhere in Spain to fight the pandemic.

It is a sentiment that has been echoed by a statement from players at Racing Santander who believe it would be "unethical" to put footballers before healthcare workers on the frontline when there are testing kit shortages.

As it stands, if the 2019-20 season is annulled, La Liga would be free to explore alternatives—to be decided by the Royal Spanish Football Federation and rubber-stamped by UEFA—about how best to decide the results of the season, which includes an option for "playoffs" to decide who would fill the league's UEFA Champions League qualifying slots. 

If and when La Liga returns, it will, however, provide a huge morale boost for people—whether it's in the summer, September or even later—as football is part of the lifeblood in Spain.   

"Football carries a weight and significance that is huge for society here," says Mateu. "You don't find Spanish people buying a T-shirt for a museum or merchandising for a cinema, but every football fan buys a shirt for his or her team—no matter how much it costs. Nobody stops having dinner or lunch here because they're going to a concert, but in Spain a lot of people won't eat their dinner if their team loses.

"Football for a lot of Spanish people isn't a sport or a business, it's a feeling. Just like it is in, say, in England—except it's all week, not just at weekends. This is why it's so important that football returns, not only because it's a distraction from people's problems, and this coronavirus, but because people feel like their football club belongs to them."

                

Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz

One of the world's top defenders in the late '90s, Carlos Gamarra witnessed Ronaldinho's rise to fame in Brazil but was never actually what you may call a close friend. Yet, when he heard that the former Barcelona player had been thrown behind bars in Asuncion, the Paraguayan legend felt compelled to pay him a visit out of respect.

Gamarra spent a whole morning with Ronaldinho inside the country's maximum-security Agrupacion Especializada jail. That day, a particular image stuck with him.

"Honestly, I was impressed by the number of children surrounding him, asking for pictures, autographs. We all know he's a global star, but that really surprised me," he says.

Ronaldinho and his older brother and manager, Roberto de Assis, were incarcerated on March 6, on suspicion of using fake passports to enter the country. Every day, groups of kids would gather in front of the complex hoping to be allowed in and get a selfie with the Brazilian, even though most of them would be too young to remember the famous No. 10's World Cup win in 2002 or his Ballon d'Or triumph in 2005. 

During Ronaldinho's first week or so in prison, prison warden Blas Veras even organised what was jokingly referred to as "Ronaldinho's mini-tour," so the young fans could meet him for a brief moment at the outside patio of prison. 

"With the coronavirus crisis, I couldn't do that anymore. It was a shame. Ronaldinho enjoyed having them around," he explains.

The man who ruled football with a wide, buck-toothed grin before the emergence of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo remains a popular figure, despite having officially retired in 2018.

However, when he turned 40 in March, the celebrations consisted of just him, his brother and a cake brought by one of his lawyers into his small Paraguayan cell. 

It's fair to assume that this was not what the renowned party-goer Ronaldinho would have had in mind for such an occasion.

At that point, the Brazil wizard was supposed to be receiving tributes from the football world.

Instead, in his own homeland, the biggest TV network, Globo, was holding discussions on whether to cancel a three-episode special of his career that had cost them months of production time. Eventually, they decided to go ahead with it.

Meanwhile, Ronaldinho tried to maintain a routine in prison.

Inmates at Agrupacion Especializada jail have to deal with mosquitos from a nearby river and the risk of getting dengue fever, while one of the three prison blocks houses dangerous criminals.

However, Ronaldinho spent most of his time in another area with 25 inmates and, among other privileges, had a TV in his cell. According to Globosport, he watched Atletico Madrid's 3-2 win over Liverpool in the UEFA Champions League from his cell.

In total, Ronaldinho was in prison for 32 days.

Last week, following his lawyers' fourth request, a Paraguayan judge finally decided to release him from jail into house arrest after he and his brother paid $1.6 million in bail and agreed not to leave the country.

The judge relayed his ruling to them in a WhatsApp video call. At the end of it, wearing his traditional black beret, Ronaldinho just gave him the "hang loose" sign and smiled.

Ronaldinho and his brother Roberto Assis were given their court hearing by a judge via a video call (🎥 @edgar_cantero) https://t.co/y5hGCRL7q1

— B/R Football (@brfootball) April 8, 2020

Since then, he has been staying at the Palmaroga hotel, which has an average rate of about $64 per night, in central Asuncion, just three kilometres away from the penitentiary where he was imprisoned for over a month. Guards have been controlling the perimeter of the building. 

How did one of the greatest players of all time end up like this?

The immediate temptation—and it's an understandable one, considering his post-retirement fame back home as the "king of the random gigs"—was to take the first pictures of him having a kickabout in prison as just another chapter in Ronaldinho's colourful story. This time, though, there was no reason to laugh. 

So far, 15 people have already been detained in the case, which began with the false passports allegedly used by Ronaldinho and his brother when entering Paraguay on March 4, but that has since snowballed into an investigation into a possible money-laundering scheme.

One of Ronaldinho's lawyers, Adolfo Marin, insisted that the Brazil icon thought he had received the passport and documents "as a gift."

"He didn't know he was committing a crime. He's daft," Marin told Folha de S. Paulo.

Such a statement might sound a bit harsh, but it's not regarded as completely inappropriate by those familiar with his inner circle.

While his incredible talent mesmerised fans and made him football's brightest star in the early 2000s, Ronaldinho never seemed in charge of his own life or aware of what was going on around him.

The fact that many of his compatriots didn't see his photo in handcuffs as a massive shock says it all about how far his prestige had sunk.

Ronaldinho having a kickabout in a Paraguayan prison. 🙌pic.twitter.com/J7qjIcjTdY

— Footy (@Footy) March 30, 2020

"He has always been so focused on playing that, when Brazil were kicked out by Cameroon from the 2000 Olympic Games, he didn't even know about the golden goal rule and stayed there looking confused, wondering what was happening," recalls Diogo Olivier, a football columnist for Zero Hora who has followed Ronaldinho for the duration of his career.

"But at some point, there's got to be a limit to all that. If you are a 40-year-old, you must realise that if you enter a foreign country with a fake passport, you are going to be detained. At such an age, you need to have some responsibility in your decisions.

"Ronaldinho has this reputation for being in the dark when it comes to off-the-pitch matters. And the worst part is that it's indeed true. He doesn't have a clue about his business.

"Ronaldinho's family built a bubble for him and said, 'You go there and play and let us handle the rest.' And he was thrown inside that bubble very early because his potential was ridiculous. So he has been there since the age of 14 and never really had to worry about anything else. I truly believe that he could not have known for sure what he was doing in Paraguay. I truly believe in it."

Throughout Ronaldinho's entire journey from a modest Porto Alegre background to stardom, it was Assis' job to make sure this bubble was never penetrated by any negativity.

A former footballer himself, the man Ronaldinho usually calls "patrao" (boss) was a breakthrough star at Gremio, having lifted the Brazilian Cup in 1989. At the time, he was seen as a future international, but instead of waiting for a call-up, he accepted a lucrative offer from Sion in Switzerland, a decision that disrupted his rise and ultimately sealed his destiny as a journeyman.

In his late 20s, playing in Japan, he was already taking care of Ronaldinho's career from afar, turning down bids from PSV Eindhoven and trying to shield his brother from the same mistakes he made. 

Assis was not just an older brother to the smiling boy. After their father died in tragic circumstances, drowning in their swimming pool, Assis became the man of the house.

The Assis Moreira family had moved into that luxurious home just a few months before their father's death. 

The house had been a reward from Gremio following Assis' decision to sign a new contract and refuse a proposal from Torino. In order to put those memories behind, Assis decided to get rid of the pool a while later. 

Having gone through all that together, it should not come as a surprise that Ronaldinho trusts Assis blindly.

The main issue, however, is that Assis also has a reputation for being greedy, which has ended up causing trouble for the FIFA 2004 and 2005 world player of the year on multiple occasions.

Despite being widely known as Ronaldinho Gaucho (an adjective used to describe those born in the Rio Grande do Sul state), Ronaldinho is far from a hero in his hometown—quite the opposite in fact. 

Quem Lembra: Em 1988 Ronaldinho Gaúcho aos 7 anos ao Lado do irmão Assis com a camisa do Torino Itália pic.twitter.com/LfTnu8TQ3B

— Memórias Do Futebol (@MemoriasFutebol) October 15, 2015

He can't even walk the streets of his hometown of Porto Alegre these days because of past rows with his boyhood club, Gremio. In both of them, Assis played a major role.

Firstly, by taking Ronaldinho to Paris Saint-Germain at the end of his contract in 2001 and leaving the Brazilian team without a single penny; and later, on Ronaldinho's return home 10 years later, when he encouraged a bidding war between Flamengo, Palmeiras and Gremio only to choose the Rio de Janeiro side in the end.

"Despite all that, Ronaldinho still sees Assis as a guy that gave up his youth to take care of his family, so there's an enormous debt of gratitude between them," Olivier argues.

"When they went through a tough time, it was Assis who tackled the problem and even retired from football earlier to take care of Ronaldinho."

Vinicius Grissi, a football pundit for Bandeirantes and 98 FM, adds: "It's difficult to say that this unconditional trust was Ronaldinho's biggest mistake. After all, Assis' influence on his life has been enormous since his early playing days.

"In other words, even with such a great talent, he may not have reached as far as he did if he didn't have a person by his side. It's no secret that off the pitch Ronaldinho has never been someone who decided his own future. It has always been in somebody else's hands, especially his brother."

This sort of dependence is not strange at all among Brazilian players.

"We've had Adriano and his father, a relationship of much affection, but also reliance. Neymar and his dad, too, even though this one is slightly different—less emotionally dependent and more based on the complete trust in decisions. I think that they are possibly the best comparison we can make to Ronaldinho and Assis," argues Leonardo Bertozzi, a football analyst for ESPN.

"When Ronaldinho left Milan and came back to Brazil, Assis sat with three teams to negotiate, saying different things to each one of them.

"Ronaldinho could have been firmer and made his voice more heard in such situations, but he clearly didn't."

Right now, while still in custody in Paraguay, he's certainly got plenty of time to think about past mistakes from Room 104 at the Palmaroga hotel.

In recent years, his name was dragged into controversies such as an unpaid $2.5 million fine for environmental damage, having his Brazil passport confiscated, being rumoured as a possible senate candidate for the country's far-right-wing party, advertising for shady companies and standing trial on an alleged pyramid scheme.

Ronaldinho has endured a rough fall from grace, but at 40, he can still ensure that his football legacy is not fully destroyed by his post-retirement activities.

"[Diego] Maradona always comes to my mind in such cases—a very problematic character, who also had his share of messes. I still remember the image of him escaping from Italy in 1991 amid the whole [cocaine] scandal," Bertozzi says.

"Obviously, the human being's reputation can be affected in those circumstances, but the memories from the player will certainly find a way to impose themselves."

"Ronaldinho was the only guy who could have really matched Pele's status. I watched him since the very beginning and I've never seen anyone as talented with the ball. With a bit more discipline out of the field, he could have been a much bigger player, someone to win five Ballon d'Or crowns," Olivier concludes.

Instead, Ronaldinho has seen himself go from arguably the world's best No. 10 to Prisoner No. 194 in a Paraguayan jail. His biggest challenges now lie off the pitch.

       

Follow Marcus on Twitter: @_marcus_alves

With no football being played to divert the attention, Barcelona are suddenly being exposed as a club in crisis.

There have been issues behind the scenes all season, the latest of which came on Friday when six directors resigned. One of them, Emili Rousaud, even told RAC1 (h/t Marca): "I think someone has had their hand in the till."

Such a comment will not sit well with president Josep Maria Bartomeu, but he is now under mounting pressure to bring forward club elections.

It's all very tense, and there are serious worries about how issues in the background will begin to impact the team on the pitch.

A month without fixtures is beginning to affect how they plan financially, sources in Spain told Bleacher Report. Players have agreed to cut their wages by 70 per cent, and the club also applied for an ERTE (Temporary Reduction of Employment Action) in order to pay other club staff.

A report from The Athletic's Dermot Corrigan on April 6 also said, "Barca's 2019-20 budget needs £109 million income from player trading to balance the books." 

Yet somehow they continue to be linked with signing the likes of Neymar and Lautaro Martinez—so how does this all add up?

Here, we take a look at the most prominent rumours for players moving both in and out of the club this year and how they might pan out.

     

In

Neymar

In a dream world, Barcelona bring Neymar back to the club as soon as possible—we already saw them attempt it last summer.

He's probably going to remain out of reach this time around, too.

Neymar is happier now in Paris than he was a year ago, and the fact that Paris Saint-Germain are into the quarter-finals of the Champions League shows they are closer to matching his ambition.

The other major factor in PSG's favour is that they believe no club in the world has the power to sign him at the end of this season because of the economic circumstances now arising.

La Liga is expected to be hit hard by the impact of the coronavirus, and Neymar's wages—which equate to more than $3 million a year—is a problem on top of any transfer fee, which would be upwards of €160 million (approx $175 million), B/R sources suggest. 

Barca would have to sell at least two big-money players to even consider signing Neymar.

       

Lautaro Martinez

As one of the key performers for Inter Milan in Serie A this season, Martinez has emerged as a target for Barca.

His arrival is more realistic than that of Neymar, particularly as he has a €111 million release clause that can be triggered this summer. Martinez is currently weighing up his options before committing any further to his current employers. No new negotiations have taken place over an improved deal with Inter. 

Aged 22, he has the potential to help Barcelona transition away from star striker Luis Suarez, and he would be linking up with fellow Argentina international Messi—which is an obvious lure. Intermediaries have already touched base to make him aware that formal contact could be on the way soon, and if he leaves Inter, this is where he is most likely to land. 

"This deal can become possible," one Spanish source confidently told B/R.   

      

Kai Havertz

Barca have a long-standing interest in Bayer Leverkusen's Havertz, who is just 20 years old. He has an exciting style of play that would suit them, with his bursts from midfield catching the eye. 

He's been one of the most coveted young players in Europe over the past year, and Barca have remained one of the few clubs genuinely in with a chance of getting him.

They have maintained constant relations with his representatives, yet there is a growing feeling among  Bundesliga insiders that we will stay in Germany.

There is a feeling it might be too soon in his career to move to a new country and also break through at a major club, so B/R sources believe Bayern Munich is his most likely landing spot.

By staying in Germany, he can take a small upwards step, prove himself at the next tier, then look for the major transfer outside of the country in a couple of years.

If Barca can raise the funds, they will make an offer for Havertz, though—so it will be interesting to see how tempting that becomes when actually faced with the opportunity. 

     

Out

Ousmane Dembele

Since joining from Borussia Dortmund in 2017, Dembele has missed 80 matches through injury, with many of those issues relating to his hamstring—a big concern for a young player whose style of play depends heavily on pace and trickery. 

Sources in Spain have acknowledged the chances of Barca ever recouping the €105 million they initially splashed out on him are now slim. While his talent is not in question, clubs will be concerned about how long he can remain fit.

Dembele is contracted to Barca until 2022, and the feeling among sources is that the club are going to give him time to focus fully on his rehabilitation, and only once he has returned to the field again will they begin to think about his future.

There is a sense the player deserves that respect and time. Ideally, Barcelona do not even want to sell him at all.

But this one is going to have to be revisited in the new year before we have a better idea of how the situation pans out.

        

Philippe Coutinho

The transfer from Liverpool has not worked for Coutinho, and now the Spanish club are looking at ways to keep him off their wage bill. They simply need to move on from each other.

Coutinho is currently on loan at Bayern Munich, who have no intention to sign him on a permanent basis.

But the player himself has been refusing to think too far into the future while there is uncertainty around how the COVID-19 pandemic will influence major transfers over the coming year.

One source told B/R he is keen on the idea of returning to the Premier League, and he still holds a good reputation in English football. However, his £240,000-a-week wage from Barca would be a problem for most clubs in the division.

The amount, which equates to around $300,000, would make him the highest earner at most clubs.

Chelsea and Arsenal are being strongly linked. Chelsea would only be interested in a loan deal, and even then they have reservations about how he would fit into their overall structure. 

Tottenham Hotspur, Leicester City and Everton have an interest, but it would depend on the finances. One source suggested Barca will struggle to recoup much more than half the £142 million they paid for him two years ago in this current climate. He needs to go, though, so they are going to have to work hard to find him the ideal transfer.

       

Antoine Griezmann

Barcelona needed a huge loan to complete Griezmann's transfer from Atletico Madrid and, in hindsight, should not have bothered.

He's struggled to find his rhythm in attack with Messi and Luis Suarez, and in March, there had been suggestions from insiders around the club that he would be sold if they received a suitable offer.

Those thoughts were before the coronavirus pandemic kicked in, though. While some involved at the top level would still sell, there is now only a slim chance of being able to offload Griezmann. Of the clubs who could realistically afford him, Manchester United would normally have an interest but are focusing on other deals.

So the only other option might be to use him as a makeweight to bring back Neymar from PSG. It has been considered, but it is believed Griezmann doesn't want to give up on Barca just yet, so he would not be keen on moving to Ligue 1. 

The club are most likely to keep Griezmann for now, but we should expect them to evaluate his situation again in 2021.  

FC Barcelona have threatened legal action against former vice president Emili Rousaud because of allegations he made against the club after resigning this week. 

According to Joe Wright of Goal.com, Rousaud said the following to RAC1 on Friday: "I think someone has had their hand in the treasury, although I don't know who. You pay €1 million [to i3 Ventures] for a job that has a market price of €100,000. I don't know who it was, but I can have an idea, although I don't think it was someone on the board."

In response, Barcelona released a statement which read, in part:

"In the light of the serious and unfounded accusations made this morning by Mr. Emili Rousaud, ex institutional vice president at the Club, in different interviews with the media, FC Barcelona categorically denies any activity that can be described as corruption, therefore, reserves the right to any legal action that may correspond."

Rousaud was one of six Barca board members to step down this week, along with Enrique Tombas, Silvio Elias, Josep Pont, Jordi Calsamiglia and Maria Texidor.

Per Wright, it was reported that the resignations occurred after club president Josep Maria Bartomeu asked that four members step down in an effort to "strengthen support" during what is his final year in office.

Barcelona commented on the reshuffling as part of their statement:

"Finally, the resignations of the members of the Board of Directors announced over the last few hours have come about due to a reorganization of the Board put forward by president Josep Maria Bartomeu and which will be completed in the next few days. 

"This reorganization of the Board of Directors is an attempt to face the challenge of the final phase of the mandate in the best way possible with the objective being the implementation of the necessary measures to prepare for the Club's future, overcoming the consequences of the public health crisis which is currently upon us and to bring to a conclusion the management program began in 2010 and the Strategic Plan approved in 2015."

Rousaud also alleged that Barcelona and PR firm i3 Ventures entered into an agreement meant to improve Bartomeu's image and fight against criticism from current and former Barca players on social media.

Both Barcelona and i3 Ventures have denied any such arrangement.

Barcelona star Lionel Messi refuted speculation he's considering a move to Inter Milan.

Football journalist Fabrizio Romano shared Messi's Instagram post ruling out the possible transfer:

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1248310171891359744

While Messi has spent his entire senior career at Barcelona, his future with the club has been a storyline throughout the season.

The six-time Ballon d'Or winner got into a war of words with sporting director Eric Abidal after the former Barca defender attempted to shift the blame to the players for the sacking of manager Ernesto Valverde.

The Guardian's Sid Lowe noted Messi's contract includes an option that allows him to leave for free this summer. Lowe added that "there is a growing feeling his final years are being wasted" in reference to Messi, who turns 33 in June, and that the Argentinian star may share the opinion.

Barcelona are the two-time reigning La Liga champions, but they threw away a 4-1 first-leg lead in the 2018 Champions League quarter-finals and then watched a 3-0 first-leg lead evaporate the following year in the semi-finals.

The turmoil at Camp Nou isn't limited to Messi's status. ESPN FC's Moises Llorens and Sam Marsden reported club president Josep Maria Bartomeu was attempting to ouster four members from the board: "One source compared life behind the scenes at Camp Nou to hit television drama Game of Thrones, explaining that everyone is vying to position themselves ahead of next summer's presidential elections."

Sky Sports' Lyall Thomas reported in February that Messi intends to see out the full duration of his current deal, which runs through 2021.