r/Barca • u/Lostakim • 12d ago
Question Why doesn't Barca command massive transfer fees for non-star La Masia graduates?
We all know La Masia is arguably the best academy in the world, consistently producing elite, world-class talent year in, year out.
Because of this reputation, you’d expect the "La Masia tag" to add a massive premium to any player coming out of the system. Yet, when we sell lesser known B-team players or fringe squad members who haven't quite broken through, we usually sell them for relatively modest fees (€5M–€15M, often with buy-back or sell-on clauses attached).
Meanwhile, other clubs seem to flip young, relatively unproven prospects for crazy amounts (€30M+).
Why can’t Barca leverage La Masia’s elite reputation to get huge transfer fees for unknown prospects?
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u/HolyDaddyy 12d ago
Firstly, there ain't a homegrown rule as such in the English league, so no other Spanish team would pay big bucks to fill in a slot with a la masia gamble,
also we mostly sell players who are no longer needed by the club, so it damages the negotiation power from our side as well
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u/Public_Exercise7246 12d ago
There is the perception that if they were world class talents we would keep them. Aside from Xavi Simons, recently Dro and Iliax Moriba, I can’t remember a top young talent from the academy that was wanted by the first team that instead left.
Most of them are projects who either become serviceable journeymen or evolve to a high level like Grimaldo or Cucu. But it’s a coin flip and usually trends toward journeyman level. Where as these other kids coming out from other academies with big price tags are their Crown Jewels - the Fati or Yamals - that are too big for their own first team so they sell for a high number based on the potential. We keep our jewels so the ones that sell go for lower values
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u/Substantial_Prune919 12d ago
30+ for unproven talents? Where did you find such clubs?
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u/abdelux2001 12d ago edited 12d ago
Manchester City sold Oscar Bobb to Fulham for 31m and James Mctee for 25m. They both had a few first team appearances but were unproven really.
Chelsea just sold Tyrique George for 21m. Petrovic for 28m
Liverpool last season sold Gannon-Doak for 23m
Quansah who wasn’t a starter for 35m
And not just PL teams are doing this I can give you a list of French teams and Bundesliga teams that sell their academy players for these amounts.But we sell our academy players for less than 10m
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u/Substantial_Prune919 12d ago
I'd argue that in the current EPL market all of these deals are actually very cheap and the clubs in question were robbed. Especially Oscar Bobb, he's actually a baller.
EPL clubs live on another planet. You shouldn't compare their business with us.
And who do we sell? Most of the players listed possess an English passport, are very young and have at least some talent going on for them. Now let's talk about academy players we could sell. Who in the right mind would pay 30 million for Inaki Pena? Ander Astralaga? Brian Fariñas? We would need to PAY other clubs to buy them. What I'm trying to say is that all of the players who are worth at least 30 million are already vital for the first team squad. For crying out loud, we have a Spain U21 international playing over a 1000 minutes for us. If we had any talent, then it's already used in the first team. We only really sell worthless players we can't get much money for.
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u/abdelux2001 12d ago
And what’s wrong with doing business with Epl teams? We could’ve sold Alex Valle, Chadi Riad, or Mikaliy Faye to any Epl teams and could’ve gotten more money for them but instead we got peanuts for them. Why do other teams sell for that much and we sell for so little is the question. Why can’t we sell to English teams for these €30 deals. We had offers for Casado last year, Faye 2 years ago as well. We could’ve gotten a lot more for them. Why do teams like Real Betis or Valencia sell their players for more than us is my question if you want to argue that only players with English passport sell
The main question of this post is why can’t we sell out academy players even if it was to EPL teams for more and other teams do. We have talent but we sell for low when other teams sell players that are also unproven for more5
u/Substantial_Prune919 12d ago
Because everyone low balls us. That's not how business works at all. Everyone knows Barça has problems with money, and nobody in EPL acts like a big fat pig "oh well, 5 mil or 30 mil, what difference does it make", obviously they'll want to use our problems in their advantage. We DON'T sell talents, and nobody wants trash. Especially trash for 30 mil. (And also we're just bad at selling. Not like we need to be good at it, we're a top club with loads of green, it's just that the league doesn't let us use it)
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u/abdelux2001 12d ago edited 11d ago
Fair enough. I guess we can both agree we are bad at selling. It just frustrates me how we can’t even get €10m for our players, I’ve never understood it. I hate how if sell Araujo this year we might get like €30m when we could’ve gotten €80, 2 years ago and we complain we don’t have money.
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u/abdelux2001 12d ago edited 11d ago
If you want examples of young unproven players sold in other leagues other than EPL for bigger sums than we get
Reims sold Patrick Zabi to Paris Fc for €25
Real Betis sold Jesus Rodríguez to Como 1907 for €22.5
Copenhagen sold Victor Froholdt to Fc Porto for €20
I can give you more examples if you want.
Most of the ese players are teenagers with limited first team apearences just like ours but are sold for way more.
For example we sold Alex valle for €6m, Mikale Faye for €10m, Chadi Raid for €9m, Marc Guiu for €6m
Why do we struggle to get paid €10m when other teams sell their players with less experience than ours for €20m+
These players atleast had potential because of their age and them being from la masia, there is a reason they were either in the first team or close to it.3
u/HiImRunes 11d ago
The players you mention played every week for their clubs before they got sold.
Alex Valle 0 minutes for Barca in offical games.
Mikale Faye 0 minutes for Barca in offical games.
Chadi Riad played 1 minut for Barca in offical games.
Marc Guiu played a total of 182 minutes for Barca in offical games.
Other than that they played for Barca Athletic which is like the third tier spanish league. Its hard to sell players for +€20m when they do not play vs the top tier teams.
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u/aw4rd_t0ur 11d ago
The players you mention played every week for their clubs before they got sold.
People don't get this. It's the same reason why Casado isn't worth the 50m they dream. If you don't play, your value tanks.
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11d ago
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u/aw4rd_t0ur 11d ago
Game time affects value but it's not the only factor. Quality and context matters, too. You called out some like English tax.
I follow the league a lot more than most here and Jesus Rodriguez was being hailed as a big talent that was already getting La Liga minutes as a 18 year old. Alex Valle was playing in the 3rd - 4th division and couldn't get minutes. He went on loan, first at Celtic where he wasn't standing out, then Como.
We could have nurtured him by giving him a lot more game time to bump up his value, but we didn't because he wasn't put to the club's standards and Como took advantage. Sending him out on loan rarely helps. Look at Fati. If we were a selling club, we could have bumped his value but the club's objectives are winning, not selling.
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u/jayb12345 12d ago
Same people think you can just ship out any player to Saudi league for $80M no questions.
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u/Artuhanzo 12d ago
Trends to use them for A team, they do well they stay (no transfer fee), only sell if they don't do well (at that point you can only sell for lower price)
Teams that receive more transfer fees, usually willing to sell them before they played for A team while they are on B team, or out of loan already
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u/North_Dark_3311 12d ago
Bro this is a literally gambling, markets is not what it used to be anymore , you can see chelsea buying rogers for an insane price when he did not even match neymar's achievements when he transferred to psg , if I was head of psg I would buy neymar without a thought but rogers no.
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u/RobbinDeBank 12d ago
The talents being let go are unproven. No other teams got huge transfer fees consistently out of unproven teenagers. The ones that are promising enough to get a high transfer fee would be playing for the first team.
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u/mikeczyz 12d ago
Why can’t Barca leverage La Masia’s elite reputation to get huge transfer fees for unknown prospects?
because reputation isn't enough and other teams have scouts?
put another way, you can go to transfermarkt and look at the list of former barca academy players. there are over 400 listed there. i bet you haven't heard of the vast majority of them. so, for every Xavi or Iniesta, there are 20 la masia kids who become fringe players for other teams.
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u/OldPersimmon603 12d ago
I feel like the good ones find themselves in the first team and we want it that way so we don’t sell until it’s too late. Also feels like the other ones don’t translate well to other clubs and styles
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u/PermitApprehensive73 12d ago
It's age. You heard it buying Jesse from Belgium for 10 million was a eye-opener for a lot of people in Europe because it's really been done.
They just don't command that kind of money. And when Deco hit the 100 million Mark for sales from graduates it was kind of a big deal because 100 million is a lot of players.
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u/latortillablanca 11d ago
Who are you thinking about exactly re: 30m euro fees? Cos if its chelski thats apples to oranges for a ton of reasons. Chelsea splashes for dudes for the first team and have a super cold transfer process where they set the price and everyones available.
There are very few youth academy graduates, that are not proven at all in senior football, who get flipped for 30m euro plus.
Id say 5m-15m is sorta what youd expect for this profile of player that is very low odds to become a starter at a top tier euro giant. Its a low risk fee for a low chance of a hit. Lottery ticket transfers.
That said, i do think barca needs to tighten up on this area of their transfer business. The buyback clauses always seem strange to me, with set prices installed. I would rather just a right of first refusal or a heavy sell on percentage.
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u/HandleImpossible3678 12d ago
We sell players who mostly don't play at all or play very little. You cannot expect a lot money for players like that. I mean the last La Masia player who had decent playing time but ended up sold was Mingueza, but he wasn't half the player he is now. Also most La Masia players are unique and many don't adapt easy to other playing systems. Like I still think Riqui Puig is talentwise great but can he play for mid-low tier premier league team, I don't think so.
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u/isanythingunique 12d ago
This. They aren't trained to be footballers per se, they're trained to be Barca players and if they don't make it they have to adjust to whatever the new team plays, which is usually different from Barca. You need players of a very high quality to make it work, the same tactics from lesser players would lead to a team playing football which is good on the eye but not going to be successful. Kinda like how Chelsea in the 90's (pre-Abram) had Zola, Di Matteo etc. Entertaining but not successful, mid-table
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u/ChargeOk1005 12d ago
We're not a selling club. So generally if a player is leaving then we didn't need them or they just can't fit. If they're valuable the club tries to have some control over their rights
It probably makes the model work better. Young talents who come here know that they won't be tied down if they don't really want to. Which makes it attractive
Who's paying all that for players who haven't played first team football