FC Barcelona must stay away from “our Frenkie”. That is the tenor in the Dutch reporting on Frenkie de Jong.
Now, as an unpaid vice-chairman of the Frenkiefanclub, I would like to say nothing more than that, but the more I read about it, the more I start to have doubts. I wrote about him regularly because I thought he was such a gifted football talent, remotely comparable to Johan Cruijff. In addition, he makes a sympathetic impression off the field as he doesn’t try to impress with tattoos, Rolex watches, dealing cocaine, visiting captive criminals and stabbing awkward cousins.
So far everything is fine with Frenkie. I will certainly not try to justify FC Barcelona’s financial policy. There, the previous incompetent management promised the most ridiculous amounts to some players, including Frenkie. The estimates vary, as Koen Greven in NRC showed, because a kind of information war has erupted around Frenkie.
Off to the Spanish sports newspaper marca leaked figures (by FC Barcelona?) showed that Frenkie would earn a total of 88.58 million euros over the next four seasons in fixed salaries and loyalty bonuses (wonderful word). For the past three years, he has received 16 million euros per season; he still owes some of it because he agreed to postpone payment at the request of FC Barcelona during the pandemic.
FC Barcelona would henceforth not want to pay its players more than 10 million euros per season and is also trying to force Frenkie to do so. In the meantime, the club is attracting expensive new players. That is extremely unsympathetic, but it also indicates something that should give Frenkie something to think about: people are not really satisfied with him as a player.
Unfortunately I have to applaud the club for that. I too was sad because Frenkie played rather dull and inconspicuous for FC Barcelona. Football fans hoped he would transform from a useful defensive midfielder to an attacking, scoring midfielder like Kevin De Bruyne at Manchester City.
Koen Greven wrote that this is still there, but I don’t believe in it that much anymore. Frenkie prefers not to put any risk in his game, he only does it if he is provoked to do so, as recently against Rayo Vallecano; Ruud Gullit be right in that Rondo on. Frenkie also knows that this is a shortcoming. After his first season with FC Barcelona, he recognized in Fidelity that he had excelled too little: “It was just very flat. Too flat.” That has remained the case, he only excelled sometimes at Orange.
At FC Barcelona there is apparently a growing awareness that they have overestimated him. They want to keep it, but not for the promised maximum price. Frenkie in turn would prefer to stay in Barcelona. If he hands in money, he can stay. He would then still have earned around 80 million euros after seven seasons. Nice to have, right? And it also has something reciprocal: FC Barcelona did not give him what he promised, he did not give FC Barcelona what he hoped for.
I would do it for it. Rather FC Barcelona than Chelsea, where his virtuoso former Ajax colleague Hakim Ziyech is already wasting on the couch.
Also read this article: Frenkie de Jong has to hand in millions or leave FC Barcelona
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of August 17, 2022