Barcelona fans overwhelmingly in favour of Marc-Andre ter Stegen being stripped of captaincy | OneFootball

It was Andreas Christensen’s injury last summer that enabled Barcelona to register Dani Olmo and Pau Victor as new summer signings, for the defender’s wages were cleared from the paycheque after his long-term injury.

With Marc-Andre ter Stegen facing a fitness setback ahead of the new season and set to undergo surgery once more, it was expected that a similar tactic would be employed by the club to ensure the registration of the new signings.

All their plans went to the cleaners, however, when the club captain took to his social media to intentionally announce his time out as three months, thus ensuring that Barcelona cannot make use of the aforementioned workaround.

Ter Stegen has no supporters

As relayed by SPORT in a recent update, the Barcelona faithful are anything but impressed by Ter Stegen’s clearly hidden intent, and the German is quickly growing into an unpopular figure at the club.

In a poll conducted by the publication, 88% of voters were in favour of Ter Stegen being stripped of his captaincy, something that would have seen more resistance a year ago.

This comes after multiple sources reported that Barcelona were seriously considering the idea of taking the captaincy away from the 33-year-old.

Ter Stegen could lose his captaincy at Barcelona. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Ter Stegen was injured for most of last season and was covered for by Inaki Pena and Wojciech Szczesny. Immediately upon returning, however, he demanded to be reinstated as a starter, something Hansi Flick refused to guarantee in critical games.

The divide between Ter Stegen and Flick, needless to say, began at that point, and the signs are now ominously poor for the German goalkeeper, especially after the club signed Joan Garcia.

Garcia will be the Blaugrana’s new starting goalkeeper next season, and Ter Stegen’s refusal to leave the club changes nothing in the coach’s plans.

His latest move of seemingly attempting to foil Barcelona’s plan to register new players on his wages, needless to say, could well see him officially stripped of captaincy.