Rousaud believes that the “embarrassing” behaviour of Gerard Piqué, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba during their time at Barcelona is a key reason behind their financial issues.
The three were key players during arguably the best spell in Barcelona’s long and storied history but their high wages took a serious toll during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Barça’s problem was that they had the best player in the world (Messi), and he was the only one who generated the salary he earned,” the former club director explained in his recently released biography, The Faith of the Entrepreneur.
“But there was pressure from Leo’s players’ entourage—Jordi Alba, Piqué, Busquets—all of them had to have their salaries raised, putting pressure on the president. This met Leo’s needs, and that led to absurd inflation.”
“It’s not that Piqué wasn’t a good defender,” Rousaud continued, “but he wasn’t the best defender in the world, and he was the highest paid. But the model worked as long as they were winning. Every company has to have a certain level of pay equity, and that broke down. Then the pandemic hit, and revenue dropped dramatically, without the tickets.”