Joao Felix has revealed he gave up a «significant amount of money» in order to complete his season-long loan from Atletico Madrid to Barcelona.
Felix spent the second half of last season on an expensive loan with Chelsea and his high wages threatened to derail his hopes of moving to Barcelona, whose financial troubles have forced them to pursue cut-price signings in recent years.
The move eventually went through on deadline day and Felix has now revealed the financial sacrifice he had to make to seal his dream switch.
«The truth is I gave up a significant amount of money from my salary,» Felix told . «But, well, I needed to change.
»I needed to go to a place where I could practice my football and, as I said, I always believed this would be the ideal place. Things are going well. I had to make that effort to have joy playing again."
Asked if he would make any further sacrifices to join Barcelona permanently next summer, Felix added: «It depends how the season ends. Barcelona are the ones who have to negotiate with Atleti, and it all depends on Atleti, if they want to make things easier or not.
»But those are business things, numbers which I don't get involved in. I do my job on the field, I try to do my best so that they want to sign me in the end."
Felix went on to admit that enjoying football was a key reason for his decision to leave Atletico, where he struggled to adapt to Diego Simeone's preferred style of play.
«It's clear to everyone, whoever is in a bad place has to change places,» he said. «I did it before with Chelsea and I have done it now with Barcelona because I was not doing well [at Atletico].
»I did not adapt to the ideas of the club and the coach, but I always tried to do the best I could and I have had very
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