Barcelona Start Adding ‘Fear Clause’ In The Contracts Of Their Players Leaving On Loan – News18

The Barcelona team management has added a “fear clause” to the contracts of its players who move to other clubs on loan. Budding talents, graduating from the youth academy often spend time away playing at a different club before making their return to Nou Camp.

This often results in mind games when the clubs face each other as the loaned players are often aware of their parent team’s tactics. To negate this threat, Barcelona came up with an intelligent clause in the contracts of the players they loan out. A report published by Sportbible claimed that according to the clause the loaned footballers will be prevented from featuring against their parent club with their respective teams in either La Liga or Copa del Rey throughout the season.

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The article also suggested that Barcelona players, including Nico Gonzalez and Ez Abde, were stopped from playing against the Catalan giants for Valencia and Osasuna respectively in the last season.

Nico Gonzalez had joined Barcelona’s youth academy, La Masia, in 2013. He made his debut for the first team in August 2021. Later, the Spaniard joined Valencia on a loan in the 2022-23 season. He failed to make a significant impact at the club, scoring one goal in the 26 games that he played. The 21-year-old is reportedly closing in on a deal with Porto for the upcoming season.

Ez Abde, on the other hand, also could not line up against Barcelona while plying his trade for Osasuna last season. Abde showed promising signs during his loan spell at Osasuna as he scored six goals in 34 games.

Barcelona, meanwhile, remain in the market for new talent in the summer transfer window. Manager Xavi believes that the squad can still improve a lot. “We’re still missing pieces, we can’t fool the fans. I think we can strengthen more, but the technical staff are working very hard, and the president is doing a very good job. We must strengthen ourselves, the president knows that, Mateu [Alemany] knows that, we must not deceive anyone. The market will be long, it’s open until the 31st of August, and we need to be as competitive as possible,” Xavi was quoted as saying by Sportbible.

German midfielder Ilkay Gundogan, and the Spanish duo of Inigo Martinez and Oriol Romeu are Barcelona’s three summer signings so far.