The transfer saga surrounding Antoine Griezmann continues. Legal proceedings are apparently being initiated in Spain for the 31-year-old Frenchman, who scored Atlético Madrid 2-1 against FC Porto in the Champions League, to clarify the unclear contractual situation surrounding the loan agreed last summer.
According to a report by “Mundo Deportivo” FC Barcelona, Griezmann’s regular club, is preparing a lawsuit intended to prove that the purchase obligation stipulated in the contract has already occurred and that the attacker must switch to the “Colchoneros”. The background is a clause according to which Atlético must commit the left foot for 40 million euros if it is used in 50 percent of the games for at least 45 minutes.
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That was the case in the first year: Griezmann made a total of 35 appearances for the Rojiblancos, scoring eight goals and providing seven assists. Due to these assignments, the loan was initially extended by a further year and now offers room for two different interpretations of the clause.
While the first season is enough for Barcelona to consider the purchase obligation valid, Atlético insists that the 50 percent is spread over both seasons. For this reason, Griezmann only came off the bench in the first five games of 2022/23 and had to be content with 28, 28, 26, 27 and 29 minutes. Coach Diego Simeone did not want to confirm a possible instruction from the club’s management when asked last week, but did not deny it either and said: “I am a man of the club and will always be”.
Griezmann was also a man of the club for five years before he got his dream transfer to FC Barcelona in the summer of 2019 – the transfer fee of 120 million euros made him one of the ten most expensive footballers in history. With the Catalans, who have massively raised themselves with the transfer and the matching salary, he rarely reached the class that made him one of the best attackers in the world at Atlético.
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