At some point this summer Antoine Griezmann will probably be a Barcelona player but it seems to get to that point is going to require a long and arduous journey.
There have already been multiple twists and turns in this saga and today provides another one.
Yesterday we reported that Barcelona were looking to get the deal done by Friday at the latest as they didn’t want things to drag on. It now seems they were being extremely ambitious in that.
AS explain what’s going on today and it seems Barcelona are a little cash-strapped. They had wanted this week to be ‘Griezmann week’ but that now looks unlikely to be the case.
The original plan was to pay his €120m release clause on Wednesday, Griezmann arrive at Barcelona on Thursday, present him on Friday and then he could join training on Monday.
However, AS report that the ‘lack of liquidity’ at Barca and their negotiations with banks to cover the €120m price are holding things up.
In fact, they may not even be able to pay the release clause until Friday now. It’s causing a fair bit of tension at the Camp Nou, with it being claimed June’s wages were paid three days late.
Barcelona tried to negotiate with Atletico to speed things up but the latter weren’t playing ball. They will only accept the full payment of his release clause because they’re annoyed at how Barca have acted in this saga.
It looks like the Griezmann drama could rumble on for a little while longer. Unless Barcelona can find the money down the back of the couch, they can’t make their move for the striker.
Selling a player is their easiest solution.
