Update: Barcelona cannot afford Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski unless Frenkie de Jong is forced out

Update: 14th July, 7:30PM: Barcelona really don't have the money to pay for Robert Lewandowski

Bayern Munich will have to wait a bit for another bid from Barcelona. Looks like they don't have much money. Explains why they are desperately forcing Frenkie de Jong out the door. If they can't even register free signings, then how will they sign Lewandowski?

This saga is just mad.

Update: 14th July, 1:30PM EST: Bayern Munich are not expecting Robert Lewandowski to participate in the team presentation week

According to Florian Plettenberg, in a report we almost missed because it was limited to an interview he gave to a Polish news network, Robert Lewandowski is not scheduled to participate in Bayern Munich’s team presentation on Saturday. The video of Plettenberg’s interview can be found here, spoken in English but dubbed over in Polish so it’s hard to make out what he says. Basically, the relationship with the fans and the player is so poor that he probably won’t attend the event.

Meanwhile, Barcelona have told Frenkie de Jong that he must leave the club, even though he allegedly wants to stay:

The tactics being used here are rather harsh. However, the fact that Barca can’t even register Kessie or Christensen unless the player leaves shows that their finances are clearly not where as healthy as Laporta wants us to think.

We’re halfway through the week and Robert Lewandowski was supposed to be an FC Barcelona player by now. However, it seems that the Catalans are having trouble scrounging together a bid for the Bayern Munich superstar. Per reports out of Germany and Spain, a number of factors are making the operation difficult.

Firstly, according to Kerry Hau of Sport1, Bayern Munich are demanding a large portion of Lewy’s transfer fee up-front, without any installments. If Barca were to make a €50m guaranteed bid today, the club would immediately sit down and negotiate an exit for the Polish striker. However, until that demand is met, Robert Lewandowski will remain at Bayern.

Barca are apparently having trouble producing this lump sum, which is why the Bayern executives would much rather sell Lewy to PSG or Chelsea if a bid came in. Unfortunately the striker only wants to go to Spain, which is making a deal difficult.

Meanwhile, on the other side of negotiations, we have Barca’s impending financial issues. They have yet to announce the activation of their second “lever” (a word that has curiously entered the football journalist’s lexicon over the course of this window) and presumably don’t have much money left after signing Raphinha from Leeds United.

The trouble is that the sale of Frenkie de Jong to Manchester United, which could have raised up to 85m euros for the club, is stalled. The reason? The Dutchman doesn’t want to leave Barcelona.

How Manchester United spent an entire summer negotiating over a player that doesn’t even want to join them is a mystery. EPL clubs sometimes seem to work backwards. But more importantly for Barca (and therefore Bayern) the Frenkie deal stalling throws a wrench into their plans to raise money. Now it’s unknown whether Joan Laporta has any other tricks up his sleeve, but unless de Jong is sold and Barca activates their second lever (a sale of future club revenue), they will not be able to match Bayern’s strict demands for a Lewandowski sale.

As it stands, it’s looking like Robert Lewandowski will have to stick around at Bayern Munich for a little while longer. At least he doesn’t seem to be grumpy in training anymore.

We’ll keep you updated as this clown show progresses.