Βy Aris Barkas/ barkas@eurohoops.net
Respectable Spanish sports newspaper “El Mundo Deportivo” wrote that Vasilis Spanoulis was offered to Barcelona. Spanoulis’ agent Misko Raznatovic replied via twitter “not true at all. He is under contract with Olympiacos for one more year. I was in Barcelona for other reasons”.
However, the case is not that simple. Vasilis Spanoulis is by far the highest paid player of Olympiacos with an annual net salary of 2,4 million euros. He is also the MVP of Euroleague Final Four and the best player of the team, the guy that pushed himself and everybody else into greatness. He… should ask for a raise, but in a crumbling Greek economy the environment is against him.
The next best paid player of Olympiacos was making a little less that 500.000 euros last season. So, there is a question of balance in the payroll with Spanoulis’ contract being a relic from an older and much richer period. He will get his money for the 2012-13 season, but what will happen next? Olympiacos wants to keep him, but with a discount.
Raznatovic is also the agent of former coach Dusan Ivkovic, so he probably knows what Olympiacos is thinking. So, maybe he is right. It’s “not true at all” that he offered Spanoulis to Barcelona, but who knows what will happened after the summer of 2013.