Barcelona have been fined just €300 for breaking transfer regulations over their summer signing of Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid.
No, you haven’t read that wrong. No, we haven’t missed out a ‘m’ after that 300 – that’s genuinely how much Barca have to pay for tapping up Griezmann before bringing him to the Nou Camp, according to the Independent.
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The report explains that Griezmann himself has been absolved of any wrongdoing, but Barcelona broke the rules in terms of negotiating a transfer deal with a player while he was under contract with another club.
Barcelona did eventually pay his release clause to trigger the move, but Atletico reported the Catalan giants for discussing the transfer before they actually paid that fee, according to the Independent.
It’s not quite clear why this figure of just €300 (£265) has come about, but needless to say it’s absolute pocket change for a club of Barcelona’s size.
If we really want clubs to stop breaking the rules like this, there surely has to be a system in place that will actually put them off.
This small fee is laughable and won’t hurt Barca one bit.
Chelsea, meanwhile, were given transfer window bans for some of their activity that was deemed to break transfer regulations, and that seems a far better way of hitting a club where it hurts and making a real impact.