Earlier today, Barcelona confirmed that their first-choice goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen had signed a new long-term contract with the club until 2028.
Since then, it has come to light that the German international has made major financial sacrifices as part of his new contract in order to help the club with Financial Fair Play.
Indeed, it has been reported that Ter Stegen has agreed to defer his salary until 2025 and has reduced his wages for the last three years of his contract (2025-2028) by 30%.
Barça wish to register Alonso, Pena before Villarreal clash
The downward renewal will now help the Blaugrana generate some Fair Play margin and Toni Juanmarti is reporting that the club hope to make use of it to register Inaki Pena and Marcos Alonso.
The idea is for the La Liga champions to ensure that both Pena and Alonso are registered in time for Sunday’s match against Villarreal.
As such, they are waiting for a response from La Liga to learn how much Fair Play has been generated by Ter Stegen’s contract.
If there is not enough room to register both Alonso and Pena, the latter will be prioritised at this point as Barcelona do not have an established understudy for Ter Stegen.
Indeed, for the first two matches of the season, Xavi has called up teenagers Ander Astralaga and Diego Kochen as Pena is still unregistered and the club hope to address that now with Ter Stegen’s downward renewal.
What about the rest?
It would leave Alonso and Inigo Martinez as the only unregistered players, along with imminent new signing Joao Cancelo.
However, the Blaugrana believe that the departure of Clement Lenglet, coupled with the €40 million payment that is to arrive from their German investors, should allow them to register the remaining players without any problems.
