Barcelona dropped out of the bidding for Paul Pogba this summer because of his inflated price tag, according to the Catalan club’s international transfer advisor Ariedo Braida.
Pogba completed a world record €105 million move from Juventus to Manchester United, but Braida does not believe the France international midfielder is worth that much.
In an interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport the former AC Milan director bemoaned the increasingly inflated price of footballers.
“Nobody is worth that amount of money,” he said. “All footballers are overvalued. When you reach such levels, the gap to normality is truly too great.
“We’re talking about an operation of €150m, excluding the salary. How must one feel to be overvalued? Probably they don’t think about it, otherwise they would not be able to play. The pressure must be enormous.”
Braida insists it is for this reason that Barca dropped any attempt to lure Pogba to Spain.
“I think the financial aspect is more than sufficient,” Braida said. “Pogba will manage to show his worth at Manchester and there is no doubting his technical quality, but if each game you play is not amazing then you’re going to be criticised.
“When people read such figures, they expect you to win everything by yourself, but it’s not possible. Certain figures really shock me.”
Despite losing Pogba, Juventus remain favourites to win a sixth consecutive Serie A title and Braida would not bet on anybody to beat them.
“It seems so obvious — Juve are outstanding,” he said. “Football can be strange and it’s not easy to win six years in a row, but Juve are ahead of everybody.
“Losing Pogba is a big blow, but they club have been able to make some great signings. [Miralem] Pjanic, [Marko] Pjaca and Dani Alves and [Gonzalo] Higuain — they’re a really good side, but then again if you want to win, you must not have any weakness.
“On paper, Juve are superior to everybody but they are still lacking the finishing touch in midfield, considering [Claudio] Marchisio is out injured. They could be among the top sides [in the Champions League], but I hope that the Champions League comes back to Barcelona.”
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