“Gerard Pique is suffering.”
That’s what Barcelona president Joan Laporta told an assembly of the club’s socios in June. “We can think that players, with their fame and money, do not suffer. He is a great individual and we have the privilege to have him captain. He has given us a lot, and still has a lot to give us.”
After Pique had played through pain from an adductor injuries in the 2021-22 seasons, this was his chance to make a difference as the team won qualification for the 2022 Olympic Games. Champions League.
Four months later, few at Camp Nou believe that Pique still has a lot to offer this team. The 35-year-old’s disastrous showing in last week’s Champions League group game with Inter Milan contributed directly to the 3-3 draw which almost certainly eliminated Barca from the competition.
Meanwhile, Laporta and various other Barca directors have been making clear that Pique’s huge contract, which runs to June 2024, is a very unwelcome drag on the club’s complicated financial situation.
Pique was a late substitute in Thursday’s 3-0 La Liga victory over Villarreal, with more whistles than cheers from the Camp Nou crowd as he joined the action with the result already long decided. It only made it more clear that Pique was playing in his last game for the club. The situation could have been handled much better by all parties.
Laporta’s praise for Pique last summer was fitting for a player widely recognised as one of Barca’s best-ever centre-backs, who has won three Champions Leagues and eight La Liga titles in over a decade wearing the Blaugrana shirt.
The Catalan is also steeped in Barca history — his grandfather Amador Bernabeu was a club vice-president when Gerard entered La Masia as a 10-year-old. He proudly defended the club in Clasico battles against Clasico rivals as a senior player. Real MadridEspanyol and his city neighbors. He also contributed off the pitch — using his personal business contacts to help previous president Josep Maria Bartomeu secure lucrative sponsorship deals.
Busquets, back right, celebrates winning the 2015 Club World Cup with Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta, Sergio Busquets and Dani Alves (Photo: Shaun Botterill – FIFA/FIFA via Getty Images)
It was such a high status that Pique signed a new five-year contract with the team in December 2017. The deal allegedly guaranteed the player €142million before tax, (Barcaleaks), a huge sum but in line with the fantastic salary inflation during Bartomeu’s time in charge.
That contract has been modified over the years, as Pique and other senior players agreed to defer salary into the future to aid Barcelona’s financial position, both during the final stages of Bartomeu’s time in charge, and since Laporta returned as president in early 2021. This means that Pique is understood to be costing the club around €30m this year, and €40m next year, in salary and taxes.
One reason for such historic salary deferrals is (But it’s far from the only one) why Barca’s total squad cost (wages plus amortised transfer fees) has risen again to €656million (£575m, $642m) for the 2022-23 season.
These wages are also a reason why, even as Laporta was lauding Pique’s contribution last June, that the club was opening the door for him to leave. Along with fellow ‘captains’ Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, and other high-earners Frenkie de Jong and Marc-Andre ter Stegen. Pique did not feel as much pressure as De Jong. However, the club hierarchy told him and his representatives they were not willing to pay the full amount.
Meanwhile, many stories appeared in the Catalan press claiming the ‘captains’, including Pique, were being selfish and not sufficiently loyal to Barca as an institution. This point was made in different ways by every speaker at the club AGM held three days prior to the Inter game. “We have to accelerate the exits or eliminate the contracts which are still above market rate,” said Jaume Guardiola, the president of the club’s economic commission.
Laporta joined the chorus, openly discussing how he and other directors had personally guaranteed guarantees to Barca so they could register all new signings La Liga last summer. “We have tried with various players (to accept pay cuts), but it could not happen, so we had to give guarantees ourselves of €10million,” the club president said.
These players and their advisors believe that they have done a lot to help Barca over the past few years and will not give up any money that has been agreed. Especially as Laporta and his board were busy last summer activating financial levers to borrow from the future and spend €150m+ on new signings including Robert Lewandowski. None of the long-serving players enjoy being so regularly pointed to in such a negative way — considering all they have done for the club on the pitch over their careers.
Laporta at Lewandowski’s unveiling (Photo: Eric Alonso/Getty Images)
Xavi has been more careful with his public comments about Pique, but the coach told his former team-mate that for 2022-23 he would be Barca’s fifth-choice centre-back, behind the younger Ronald Araujo and Eric Garcia, and summer arrivals Jules Kounde and Andreas Christensen. Pique, proudly, did not dispute but stated that he believed he could prove his worth to the team again.
Araujo and Kounde sustained injuries on international duty. Christensen was then forced to withdraw. Pique contributed to clean sheets against Mallorca and Celta Vigo in La Liga — playing a full part in defiant rearguard actions as Barca held on for fortunate 1-0 wins in both games.
Yet last week’s debacle against Inter was a more realistic marker of Pique’s current competitive level. The game’s lasting image is of the veteran holding out his arms to signal everything was covered, before realising he had let Inter’s Nicolo Barella in behind to score Inter’s first goal. He was also caught out as Robin Gosens scored the Italians’ third, and there were whistles ringing around Camp Nou every time Pique touched the ball late on.
When Xavi afterwards blamed “individual mistakes” for allowing Inter back into the game, everyone knew Pique was among those being referred to. There was zero chance he was going to play in last weekend’s Clasico at Real Madrid, nor were any Blaugrana fans and pundits criticising that decision, even after Garcia was at fault in two of the goals they conceded in a deserved 3-1 defeat.
The situation has brought fresh focus on how Pique had previously claimed that, were he no longer useful to Barca’s first team, he would step aside.
“I’m the first to offer to go, if it means new blood can come in,” he said directly after the 8-2 Champions League quarter-final debacle against Bayern Munich in August 2020.
“I’ll retire at Barca for sure, but I will not accept retiring as a substitute,” Pique told El Pais in October 2021, soon after he had been subbed off in the first half as Barca were beaten 3-0 at Benfica in a Champions League group game. “I wouldn’t want a whole season on the bench.”
He hasn’t been seen in any way considering leaving the club for another. MLS, Japan or the Middle East — as his former team-mates David Villa, Andres Iniesta and Xavi chose to. Despite being told last year that he would not play this season, no effort was made to find another club. His business interests also kept him close to home — his holding company Kosmos owns Segunda Division side Ibiza and runs the Davis Cup tennis competition.
Pique is a man who is often in the limelight, sharing his opinions, but he has been noticeably quieter recently. He has been quiet on social networks and has not spoken in Camp Nou’s mixed zone this season. This is also amid turbulence in his personal life — his relationship with Shakira is over and local paparazzi chase the defender for photos of him with his new partner.
This silent suffering went on for an additional 90 minutes Thursday night. The former Chelsea full-back Marcos Alonso instead was picked alongside Kounde in the centre of Barcelona’s defence against Villarreal — which makes Pique now sixth choice in that position. Alonso had some awkward moments in the unfamiliar position early in the game, but Lewandowski’s razor-sharp double set up a victory which keeps Barcelona within three points of leaders Real Madrid in La Liga. Pique was fine in his brief time on the pitch but the game was over.
Both Laporta and Xavi have suggested in recent days they could move for another centre-back in the January market, with Athletic Bilbao’s Inigo Martinez a potential target. The pressure on Pique to resign or to accept a transfer to another club will not end. Even for someone who has all the money and fame in the world, it’s a tough position to be in.
(Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images
