They’re giving lewa likely the biggest contract in Spain, spent $110M+ so far on him and raphina, and brought in kessie/christenson on frees with im sure decent sized wages. Surely offloading de Jong has to be part of this shopping spree even if it takes until Sep 1 ?

It's over

I've come to try to explain everything the best I can. Between the "levers", Frenkie's situation, player registrations, and the transfer window spending. May be a bit lengthy so bear with me:

First, the levers. Barca partnered with a US investment firm known as Sixth Street, the first lever being that they would sell 10% of the TV rights for 25 years at around €200M. You may ask "why would you mortgage the future like that?" That's actually due to shady dealings by LaLiga themselves (there's some shady s*** with Barca too, don't get me wrong. We'll get to that in a bit). LaLiga offered an investment CVC deal for all clubs, where they get still get a large influx of money, but sell their TV rights for 50 years, with no opportunity for a buyback (Sixth Street deal allows for a buyback - something no one is mentioning). That's the first "lever" which allowed us to sign Kessie, Christensen, Raphinha, and Lewandowski (Dembele's not factored in since that's counted as a renewal). This first lever, coupled with a stricter wage scale for all of our players, was simply to balance the books so the club ended the season with positive margins.

The second "lever" is another 15%, once again going to Sixth Street (I think they wanted to spread out their investments but instead I guess they found this to be the best deal for the remaining 15%, who knows) at around €300M. This one hasn't be activated yet, rumored to happen this week while Barca is on tour in the US. It's THIS one that will allow for further signings that they're looking at, because it brings our transfer budget this summer to around €200M. It's this one that will also allow us to register all of our signings because it softens the league's FFP (again, we can buy this 15% back as well).

The amount lost by the TV rights sale won't even be felt for the first 4 years because it'll be balanced out by the money we're getting from the Spotify sponsorship (€70M per season, up from the €30M we got from Rakuten last season. With Sixth Street having 25% of our TV rights which in total is around €160M a year, Spotify is covering the €40M in losses from TV rights for the duration of their sponsorship). The board wants to build the team back fast in the hopes of merchandising and earnings from potential trophies leading them stable within 5 years, and not having to go through a 15 year slow build like AC Milan.

That brings me to Frenkie, and some of the misconceptions surrounding his situation. He has deferred wages yes, because our former board President was an idiot who put that clause in for about 4 of our players knowing he was being voted out due to "no confidence" (as well as the COVID issue, all understood there). Where it gets shady with Barca is they know they don't have to pay those wages NOW, they have to pay them NEXT YEAR if he's still on the team. So, Laporta is using the threat of trying to drive him out to avoid those wages being paid to get him to agree to reduced wages because he knows Frenkie doesn't actually want to leave. That brings me to the wage scale and how I said the club was stricter on it. Outside of the captains, Frenkie, and Lewa, everyone at the club is making around €6M net per year now or lower. You saw news of Dembele agreeing to a 40% reduction to renew, that's because he's now within the scale. Lewa's an except at €9M net and the captains have a spell on the president so he doesn't even dare go to them smh. That takes me to Frenkie, where it's rumored he'll have upwards of +€17M next season if he's still on the team and hasn't adjusted. Very sneaky business by a politician trying to undo damages by an incompetent former board.

All-in-all I honestly don't know how the Frenkie situation ends, but I hope this helps clear up some questions United fans may have. Laporta saying we don't have to sell Frenkie is the truth, if you're talking about signing and registering players. It's a lie if you're talking about breaking the wage scale a year from now.

TL;DR Fans donate money on YouTube videos and rob banks.

This was well explained better than I could understand through any reporter so far this month. Could it be another Messi situation going down to the last day of Laporte saying bs about keeping him and then eventually negotiating a deal for that deferred wage to push the transfer thru? I never got that Messi situation but this seems similar to me…

Messi's renewal was reliant upon Barca signing the CVC deal, and at the very last second they didn't so we didn't have the funds to keep him. We never would go onto sign it either. LaLiga president Javier Tebas then went on a "fuck Barca" media tour basically calling the club broke BECAUSE they refused to sign away their TV rights for 50 years, which only magnified the debt we already had because then the question was "how are you going to stay afloat?" It wasn't until they got into business with Sixth Street and got more favorable terms that that b**** Tebas started singing a different tune:

The 25% sold gets us to that €500M to register all new signees, so yeah this was never about Frenkie. Honestly, if ETH convinces Frenkie to join United I do think Barca would pay him a sum amount to satisfy him the wages he would be losing on the way out, yes. I do not think United would be responsible for it at all (I mean, why would you guys?)

Simpler times.

Praying to god for FDJ deal to failex

Martinez better be good for us cus we spending a s*** load on him

Martinez is an excellent transfer to me even though the price tag is hefty

He might be a bit short for a cb but still has surprisingly quite good Numbers in the air even though its just Eredivisie

Excellent on the ball though and i think he’s gonna Shine under ten hag because he definitely wanted to reunite with Him for a reason

Maguire out, Martinez in

Varane Martinez partnership speak it into existence

A 5'9" centreback in the Prem

Price is absolutely outrageous again but he’ll be able to fill in as a defensive midfielder a la Masherano. Terrible business by the glazers but I believe he can be a good player.

Ten Hag clearly doesn't wanna play with a traditional DM. One would have been bought by now if that was the case I'm sure. Two, he's not played Martinez as a DM for 2 seasons now. Very much a left-sided CB.

Don't think its fair to call it terrible business: you lot say you don't want the Glazers involved in transfer policy, but now you do. Doesn't make any sense. It's a player Ten Hag wanted. Ajax requested a premium. Ten Hag said he still wanted him. Glazers signed off. Deal got done.

'Terrible business' would be to not back your manager in his first summer window.

what does that even mean? who do you think eth intends on playing in midfield given we agree martinez is a cb

Frenkie + 1 in a pivot, almost certainly

This.

You really think Glazers have had any part in these negotiations lmao

Ignoring all fantasies of deposing the Glazers for a minute.

The reality is we just bought a player for a higher fee than he's seemingly worth. However, we did so because the manager wanted him and valued him at such a fee.

Are you happy or dissapointed that the Glazers signed off on the deal. Obviously happy.

Reality is that the money the Glazers have "given" to United since 2014 should be more than enough to build a massively successful team. Now that hasn't happened, due entirely to incompetence caused by the Glazers themselves, but I'd rather address the incompetence than moan about United not spending 500m every summer because they're the biggest team and make the most money.

Not a chance but the people they irresponsibly hired do you lot are clueless

Doesn’t seem like you have been paying attention to the club in recent years the manager has always been backed reasonably first hand ad he should with United being one of the biggest clubs in the world.

we bought him with club revenue not investment from the Glazers