On Thursday, the 33-year-old goalkeeper – captain of the La Liga champions – announced that he needs surgery to treat a back injury, which has prevented him from training with his teammates in recent weeks.
Ter Stegen personally announced the news on X, stating quite calmly that he would be sidelined for three months.
This caused an uproar within the club, prompting some members of Barcelona's board of directors to want to strip Ter Stegen of the captain's armband.
However, things are not that straightforward. The decision lies with head coach Hansi Flick and his players – each year, Barcelona's captains are determined by a team vote before the start of the season.
Nonetheless, board members interpreted Ter Stegen's statement – with the key part being his precise prediction of how long he would be out – as a challenge to the club, indicating that he is no longer an effective communication bridge between the dressing room, coaching staff, and executives.
But this was far more than just a tweet about a player's surgery; in other words, it may have seemed like an ordinary post from a player about to undergo surgery – but that was not the case.
Barcelona had no idea that Ter Stegen was about to issue the statement, let alone reveal his projected recovery time. The club released its own statement two hours later, but did not specify when he would return.
What made mentioning "three months" the worst part, for reasons we will explain, is as follows.
Barcelona clearly wants to sell Ter Stegen, but his team has stated that if Barcelona wants to offload his high salary, they need to find a suitable buyer or pay the full salary for the remaining years of his contract as compensation.
The club became aware of this as early as July 12, before the start of preseason, when Flick and Ter Stegen held a private discussion about his situation.
Since then, many at Barcelona have begun to think that he might not leave this summer. This belief strengthened when the club realized he had a back injury that prevented him from training with the first team.
But to some extent, his injury has given Barcelona a glimmer of hope regarding their finances.
If Ter Stegen's back injury keeps him sidelined for at least four months, under La Liga's criteria, this would be classified as a long-term absence. Within the scope of the league's salary cap regulations, if a club has a player with a long-term injury, the club can use 80% of that player's salary to register new players – even if the team's spending exceeds the league's salary cap.
Under La Liga rules, Barcelona is currently over the salary cap and thus cannot register new players unless they reduce wages from their payroll or generate new income.
It was this "long-term injury" regulation that allowed Barcelona to register new forward Dani Olmo last summer, after defender Andreas Christensen suffered an Achilles injury in August, which kept him out until April.
Barcelona believes Ter Stegen needs surgery to repair his injury, which will keep him sidelined for at least four months, so they have started to view his injury as a way to register new goalkeeper García.
La Liga has an independent medical panel consisting of three different doctors responsible for such matters. The case will be evaluated, and if they determine that the recovery process is expected to take four months or longer, the long-term injury exception is likely to be approved.
This is why Ter Stegen's statement came as a particular surprise to some of Barcelona's top executives. Some current executives believe it unnecessarily complicates their ongoing registration issues.
