The situation between FC Barcelona and their goalkeeper Marc-André Ter Stegen is getting more and more complicated. In summary, the club decided to do without him the next season, signing a much younger keeper (Joan García, who will also have a lower salary) so they decided to put him on the market. But the 33-year-old German did not want to leave the club and he, either intentionally or not, obstructed both Barça's plans to sell him and the club's intention to register García.
Last week, he underwent surgery for persistent back pain. As he takes time to recover, Barça would find it impossible to sell him anywhere. He announced the surgery without consulting with the club first, but he did not stop there: he said that it would take him three months to recover. If that were the case, Barça would not be able to activate their usual strategy: use 80% of Ter Stegen's salary sign to increase the legal salary cap to allow the registration of new players, like Marcus Rashford or Ter Stegen's eventual replacement, Joan García.
A cold war erupted between player and club, but it is heating up, as this morning Mundo Deportivo reported that Marc-André Ter Stegen has refused to sign the consent form to send his medial report to the LaLiga Medical Committee, needed to assess the severity of the injury. Without it, LaLiga cannot determine whether his recovery time will be longer than four months, making it a long-term injury, which is the only case where Barça would be allowed to use 80% of his salary to register other players.
It is the same strategy that they used last year to register Dani Olmo for the first half of the season, using Andreas Christensen's long-term injury (quite a short-term strategy, as it later bounced back on them, and the club was only saved by the bell).
And the reality is that the player has the right to do it: his medical records are private, and it always needs the signed consent of the player before they're sent to LaLiga's offices. However, the players always send them anyways: this is the first time, at least for Barça, that a player has refused to send their medical reports.
According to MD, Barça considers that while no player has the obligation to share their data, they also have a series of obligations to the entity that pays him and must comply with its rules, specially because such a refusal could cause harm to the club, sporting and financially. Thus, if Ter Stegen doesn't change his mind, they would turn the case over to its legal services to immediately open disciplinary proceedings against him, which could result in an internal sanction from the club itself if the board approves it.