The FC Barcelona benchwarmer didn’t appreciate a young fan tapping on the window of his luxury vehicle
© Twitter @forcabarca_ar
FC Barcelona and ex-France star Samuel Umtiti has been widely criticized after a video of him throwing a tantrum over a young fan touching his Ferrari went viral.
The Russia 2018 World Cup winner is already in the bad books of many Barca supporters for continuing to pocket a reported €20 million ($21.5 million) per year salary, though he did take a pay cut in January so that Ferran Torres could be signed from Manchester City.
That piece of financial gymnastics saw Umtiti have his pay slashed by 10% but extend his contract from mid-2023 to 2026, with what was due in the last year-and-a-half now spread out across four-and-a-half seasons.
Before this deal, however, hardcore supporters had already stopped Umtiti’s vehicle to show their disgust with a controversial figure who has made 50 appearances in four seasons – and just one this term – yet is constantly injured or refuses to go out on loan to alleviate the club’s financial woes.
The most recent time that members of the public gathered around the 28-year-old’s car began far friendlier when Culers, as the Barca faithful are known, asked him for an autograph on his way into the training center this weekend.
But as a video that has been seen 2 million times shows, the mood soon turned sour when Umtiti lost his nerve with one youngster who banged his window.
📹 El vídeo del que todos hablan en Barcelona 🔥¿Pudo tener más paciencia? Así reacciona Samuel Umtiti después de que un niño tocara el vidrio de su Ferrari para pedirle un autógrafo 👇pic.twitter.com/axJfwq62OX
— GOAL España (@GoalEspana) April 17, 2022
“I already see you, why are you touching the car? I don’t understand,” Umtiti says while signing a Barca shirt for a woman on the opposite side of his car, who laughs at him.
Shaking his head in disbelief as he finishes with the item and gives a thumbs up to the woman, Umtiti then turns round to the kid and barks “I see you! I see you!”
Appearing to snub the youngster’s request for an autograph altogether, Umtiti then drives off saying “Madre Mia!” (“Holy cow!”) as another fan yells “Damn!”
Umtiti’s actions have been widely-blasted, with ESPN’s lead Spanish-language correspondent tagging him on Twitter while sharing the clip and saying that his conduct was “lamentable”.
“Responding to a child like this because he taps your car door. Terrible. Those gestures also go into the multimillionaire salary that the FC Barcelona B [team] pays you” the reporter added, in reference to the Blaugrana’s reserve outfit.
“He has not played football for three years, [and] in that time he has earned €60 million ($65 million),” tweeted a Spanish basketball coach. “A child touches his Ferrari for him to sign an autograph and this is how Samuel Umtiti responds. These billionaire soccer players are the worst of capitalist society.”
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“This is the saddest thing we are going to see today. Maybe he wouldn’t have that car if there weren’t kids like that who idolize him,” was another reflection.
“This gesture of Umtiti with a boy for touching his Ferrari is ugly,” came a separate criticism. “If you don’t perform on the pitch and on top of that you behave like that off it… it helps very little to change your image.”
Not everyone joined the pile-on, however, with a contrarian saying that he didn’t see anything bad in what Umtiti had done.
“The boy hits a car that isn’t his with a lot of balls, it would bother anyone. I would have done the same as Umtiti. You can’t go demanding [things] like that when an autograph is optional,” the rare show of support continued.
“A Ferrari costs a lot of money, and whether you like it or not I’m sure Umtiti put in a lot of effort to get where he has gotten to. Or would you like to buy a super expensive car and [have people] touch it as if it were [just] anything?” a separate party asked.
Out for the past three months with a fractured toe, Umtiti returned to training on Friday but has not been included in Xavi Hernandez’s squad for a home date with Cadiz in La Liga on Monday evening.
This morning, SPORT link Umtiti with a return to Lyon which could be on loan given that the center back is under no obligation to move anywhere permanently with four years left to run on his recently renewed deal.
Furthermore, any potential suitors will be wary of purchasing a player with such a lengthy injury history outright.
