Christensen makes Araújo more expensive

Barça has aired negotiations in recent days to sign Andreas Christensen (10-4-1996, Lillerod, Denmark), a Chelsea center-back whose contract ends this June and that, according to various sources, asks to double his salary of five million euros net. Ronald Araújo is aware of that movement. The Uruguayan, with a market value identical to that of Christen sen (35 million euros) and three years younger (he will turn 23 in four days) has a salary that does not reach a million euros and will squeeze Barça, who will have to scratch their pockets.

Except for Eric Garcia, Araújo is very far from the gains of the rest of the team’s central defenders. Piqué, Umtiti and Lenglet, whose salary the club is also trying to lower as it has done with the first two. Despite the fact that his performance is infinitely superior to that of the French, Araújo admits that because it is an inherited situation, but he is clear that if a new center-back lands at the Camp Nou, he cannot earn a euro more than him. Barça will have to get down to work to assess Araújo.

Rivera’s defender, on the border between Uruguay and Brazil, has already exceeded 2,000 minutes this season and has definitively established himself in the elite. Loved in the locker room, he has given a winning and competitive spirit to a team that was down and the one he shakes from the defense. The fans have also welcomed him as an idol and do not contemplate a possible exit. But for that, Barça is going to have to scratch their pockets. Araújo is a coveted player in the Premier (Chelsea may lose Christensen, Rüdiger and Azpilicueta himself this summer) and there have even been siren calls from Real Madrid. Barça trusts that Mateu Alemany’s conversations with the player’s agents come to fruition. Araújo is represented by the Excellence Sports company (Edoardo Crnjar brought him to Barça together with a Venezuelan businessman, Edmundo Kabchi), although the one who liaises with the media is Flavio Perchman, the intermediary who has accompanied him in Uruguay. Before Christensen, Barça must solve the Araújo issue.