How Arda Guler ‘Played’ FC Barcelona And Fenerbahce To Receive High Real Madrid Commissions

Reports from SPORT and their former journalist Toni Juanmarti have suggested that Arda Guler and his entourage ‘played’ FC Barcelona and former club Fenerbahce in order to engineer a lucrative move to the Catalans’ bitter rivals Real Madrid.

Out of nowhere a few weeks ago, though he was already well-known in Turkey, Guler’s was suddenly the name on everyone’s lips.

Top European clubs were falling over themselves to land the 18-year-old, but Barca believed they had won the race for his signature.

“He is a very young Turkish player, it is true that the scouting department has been following him for some time now and he is wanted by all the important clubs in Europe and we are talking to Fenerbahce,” a confident president Joan Laporta confirmed to TV3.

Laporta also revealed that his sporting director Deco, who considered Guler a “great talent”, had traveled to Istanbul to close the deal.

“Now La Liga allows us to make operations that don’t count for this year,” Laporta said, in a nod to Guler – as will probably be the case with Vitor Roque – staying in his homeland for another year before joining Barca in 2024.

This didn’t appear to be a problem when the likes of Gerard Romero and other sources from Turkey reported that Barca had reached an “agreement in principle” with Fenerbahce.

As SPORT reports, Deco traveled to Turkey believing that the transfer was “half done” because of an agreement with Fenerbahce that had Guler staying there for another season.

The Portuguese club legend was “internally misformed”, however, and hugely surprised when Guler and his entourage told him they wanted to leave Turkey post-haste with any agreement between Barca and Fenerbahce meaning nothing to them.

Deco sensed something was off. And though he promised to look for a loan for Guler to another team outside Turkey if he gave his OK to sign for Barca, Deco left the meeting with the feeling the Blaugrana had lost the battle to land the midfielder.

As we now know, Madrid indeed pipped Barca to Guler and left the Catalans with egg on their faces.

On Monday evening, Juanmarti tweeted some interesting, alleged figures from the deal.

While Fenerbahce will receive €20 million fixed and €10 million in variables, plus 20% of any future sale, the Gulers have arguably come out of the transfer saga the biggest winners of all.

The youngster received an €8 million signing bonus, and his father Umit will be paid a bumper €15 million commission coming to a total of €23 million that is bizarrely more than the boy’s former club agreed in fixed money.

This has reportedly left Fenerbahce “outraged” with Umit Guler, who they believe “played dirty” and “played” with the interest of Barca to get the highest possible commission from Real Madrid while cutting the outfit that made him professional out.

In the Spanish capital, MARCA have celebrated securing Guler as Real Madrid completing a “manita” (a “little hand” of five raised fingers as shown by Gerard Pique when Barca once beat Los Blancos 5-0 in El Clasico) over their arch nemesis when considering they also “snatched” Endrick, Vinicius, Rodrygo and Marco Asensio from them in years gone by.

Though Laporta might learn his lesson by not revealing Barca’s targets and the steps being taken to lure them in public again, his club have still scored some sort of victory by successfully pursuing Vitor Roque.

The Brazilian, able to play as a striker and on either wing, is more versatile than Guler and may prove to be a better player than the Turk and Endrick.

Moving forward, however, Barca need to be more careful when navigating the murky waters swirling around prodigious talents, their parents and clubs.