Spanish football giant, Barcelona’s plan to splash millions of euros on top players to join the team in the next season has attracted criticisms from football fans across the world.

While the club has already signed Ajax player Frenkie de Jong, Atletico Madrid’s Antoine Griezmann and De Jong’s Ajax team-mates Matthijs de Ligt and Donny van de Beek could also end up at Camp Nou at a very huge wage bill and this is irking fans of the club.

Speculations became rife on Tuesday that French player Griezmann, who had announced he will leave Atletico at the end of the season, will be joining Barca for a record signing fee of  €120million when his release clause drops from €200m on July 1.

The fans, who took to social media on Wednesday to react to the news of the planned signing of the new players, are accussing the Catalan club of abandoning young players from its football academy La Masia and ‘wasting’ too much money on ‘old players’.

The La Masia academy is famous for producing youngsters who became world class players after graduating into senior teams.

Some of the fans specifically made reference to the days when the club banked on young talents from its academy who graduated into the senior team and performed excellently for the club winning several trophies.

La Masia has been in operation since 1979 and has graduated numerous footballers into Barcelona’s first team.

Manchester City’s manager Pep Guardiola, his assistant Mikel Arteta, Cesc Fabregas, Pedro Rodriguez, Victor Valdes, Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, Carles Puyol, Andres Iniesta, Xavi Hernandez and Lionel Messi are few among the footballers who started their football career as youngsters at La Masia and went on to become great players, playing for Barcelona and other top clubs across Europe.

In their reactions, some of the football fans claimed Barcelona won more trophies when the team had more players from the La Masia academy.

 

See some of the reactions:

 

Dey have been making bad signings dis few years, la masia dat produces players has now turned to buying expensive players. Dembele coutinho. I am jejely waiting for post Messi era cos it’s only Messi dat is saving them. https://t.co/2CB8MPHHgm

— Aderinto B Adedayo (@babtunsdinto21) May 15, 2019

 

La Masia in tatters, €142 million spunked on Coutinho, Dembele picking up muscle injuries weekly, hijacking Malcom who the manager despises, still reliant on Messi for pretty much everything… successful for sure but well run feels like a stretch https://t.co/gK0FLLvbF5

— Enda Higgins (@endahiggins88) May 14, 2019

You all criticising Barcelona over non involvement of the La Masia in it’s first team really don’t understand what it means to stay at the top as a Top club! How many clubs still produces from their youth teams? You actually need to spend money to stay at the top in football now

— IbkSports (@IbkSports) May 15, 2019

When our team was 80% of La Masia we were the best all the players were fighting,from Valdes to Pedro everyone of them was doing his best to make us proud now we started pay $ to buy players, look what happened with Neymar. nowadays they cares about money more than Barça shirt. pic.twitter.com/fU3eeoj3dz

— Zoé ? (@95__Zoe) May 8, 2019

Barça coping De jong, De Ligt, Griezmann in the same summer having brought in Coutinho and Dembele all for mega deals. La Masia is well and truly dead. They’ve become their own worst enemy, a galaticos side

— El Cerebro (@tuale_CA) May 14, 2019

Barca don’t even have the patient for any La Masia graduates anymore & the way they drop money around should be a big concern for UEFA.

De Jong, De Ligt & Griezmann should cost around €200m with Coutinho, Dembele & Maicom still dey?

Barca is the new Central Bank of football.?

— POOJA… (@PoojaMedia) May 15, 2019

Like I said, La Masia is dead and Barcelona are a business. Nvm spending over €105m on Dembele and £142m on Coutinho, they will add De Jong for €75m. Also, if reports are to be believed, they will splash a combined €195m on Griezmann and De Ligt #LaMasiaIsDead

— Jay Seth (@SND_MND) May 14, 2019

since the 17/18 transfer window Barcelona have spent €490 million on transfers + 86m for de Jong, 75m de ligt and possibly 125m for griezmann this summer that’s a total of €776m on transfers since 2017.. but but la masia https://t.co/TgXxzu1qUv

— SG (@LosBlancos13_33) May 14, 2019

These people think they make players like Iniesta and Messi every other year at La Masia.
These are generational talents that appear once in a century.

Splash that cash bisssh. ?

— O.T (@OTbabalola) May 15, 2019