Barca in trouble: Nikola Mirotic reportedly unwilling to accept a 25% pay cut / News - Basketnews.com
FC Barcelona could be facing a serious problem. As "El Mundo Deportivo" reports, Nikola Mirotic is not willing to accept the salary reduction proposed to him by the club and at the moment "there is no understanding between the two parties."
The Catalan club has been trying to reduce the contracts of all the players who were signed prior to this summer. As head coach Sarunas Jasikevicius indicated, the club is going through a difficult financial period.
Earlier, progress on the issue has been made by reaching agreements on the early resolutions of some contracts (Hanga, Claver, and Westermann) and signing the new ones with Cory Higgins and Alex Abrines. During the summer, the organization of FC Barcelona waited for the football team to go first and accept pay cuts before the issue was brought to the basketball team.
As was the case with the football team, negotiations started with captains Pierre Oriola and Nikola Mirotic. The two were reportedly willing to accept a reduction in their salary but neither has given their explicit permission. In the case of the Spanish center, the club believes that an agreement could be reached shortly, but the situation involving Mirotic is much more complicated.
Mirotic is aware of the situation the club is going through. He even unilaterally presented the club with a proposal to reduce his salary at the end of last season. FC Barcelona did not accept the proposed cutdown because they considered it insufficient and the conversation during the following months did not bring a satisfactory solution for both parties.
Nikola Mirotic is currently the highest-paid basketball player in Europe and the administration of Barca believes that his contract is unaffordable in this new reality. Mirotic's salary exceeds €4 million net, which means double as much (€8 million) for the club after taxes. Barca have asked for a reduction of 25%, similar to the one accepted by the captains of the football team Gerard Pique, Sergi Busquets, and Jordi Alba.
The former NBA player's side argues that he has already made economic sacrifices at least twice since his arrival at the club, the last one being a year ago when he agreed to modify his contract and extend it until 2025 (it ended in 2022, with a club option for one more year), thereby agreeing to a small pay cut. In addition, the player argues that he already gave up on a much higher contract, offered by the Utah Jazz, when he agreed to sign with Barca in the summer of 2019.
Mirotic wants to continue with the EuroLeague finalists. In fact, he is building a house worth several million euros in Barcelona. If the two sides can't reach an agreement, the player has the right to stick to his side of the deal and demand that he got paid.
The situation raises more complications because, without an agreement with Mirotic, it will be difficult for other Barcelona players, with clearly inferior contracts, to accept a similar pay cut.
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