At some point in time, players were solely dependent on their clubs to provide their income. Years went by and players slowly found other ways to have bigger income as image rights and sponsorships came into the picture. The final stage became players starting their own businesses, which grew by players using their name recognition. Those businesses also grew thanks to scheming, secret deals, and shady behaviours. Pique's business fell into the latter part in the last few years.

In the last part, we talked about how Pique was losing the war in the media and how money made him so hated. In this part, we will talk about how he was winning.

Pique and Barcelona's Starting Eleven

Despite having his worst seasons since 2017, Pique remained a permanent name in Barcelona's starting eleven. This played a big part in Barcelona fans hating him, having only his tweets and statements where he "owns" Real Madrid as a consolation prize. How does a player, in the twilight of his career, end up with so much power? Especially since Barcelona fans have demanded new top defenders since Puyol's retirement, and even before that?

Pique's situation in the media got worse because he became the face of all the defeats Barcelona suffered. Some of those defeats came after a comfortable lead, the highlights of which can be seen with Pique's name as a constant in the defensive lineup. The Roma comeback 3-0 Pique was there, the Liverpool comeback 4-0 Pique was there. Along with the painful 8-2 loss. This comes without even mentioning the silly losses Barcelona were suffering in La Liga due to their poor defensive showing. Pique was the face of that defence.

While you could credit Pique for having to stand up and talk to the people after each loss, including the loss to Bayern where he even insisted to be the one to speak to the media, the question of why he remained the only constant among the centre-backs remains raised. The answer to this question actually has very little to do with football.

Exploiting Barcelona

How can a top club be exploited like this by so many players? You could agree that so many players across the top clubs are overpaid, many not deserving half their payment. But, you could never say that Cristiano exploited Juventus or Manchester United into paying him this much, and neither would you with even the players signed by Manchester City in their early Emirati takeover as all of those seem to be within the decisions made by the club's management itself. The same can't be said about Barcelona.

There's no problem with players having so much power in the locker room, sometimes it is required. Chelsea's locker room pretty much won the 2012 UEFA Champions League thanks to that. In Barcelona, that power was also helpful very few times since 2017, but it was negative most of the time.

In the 2019 documentary series "Matchday: Inside FC Barcelona" with Rakuten TV, Pique played a huge part in getting the deal between Barcelona and Rakuten TV done, Pique was sitting with Hiroshi Mikitani, the CEO and founder of Rakuten TV, during Barcelona's 5-1 win over Real Madrid. Both were talking about a certain incident that happened while Barcelona was in Miami and the players decided to go to a party afterwards. Here's the transcript:

Pique is reminiscing with Rakuten's chief executive, Hiroshi Mikitani, and the time he persuaded Valverde to let the players go to a party after a game in New York. In Pique's telling, he says, "Listen, Mr. Valverde, we go to a party." Then he mimics Valverde's reply: "Why? Why? Why? I see no reasons to leave you go to party." Laughing, Pique recalls his own retort: "Doesn't matter, we will go anyway!"

Basically what happened is that the players decided to go to a party in Miami, they talked to Valverde just for the sake of it and went anyway despite his problem with it.

The Problem

This is one incident, which means we could only imagine how many there were. But, the bigger problem is that this is an incident that was filmed between the broker and club player and the company filming, yet both saw no problem whatsoever with it getting aired. Pique knew he was being filmed and didn't have any problem with the world knowing.

You might say that this is a problem with the club's board as they allowed this to happen and you would be right. But, this was a filmed example for players in the locker room on how to behave and how things are running in the club and its locker room. Yes, the club's management is wrong for allowing Pique and the captains to do as they please, but that doesn't absolve Pique and the captains of any wrongdoing.

Just because you were given permission by incompetent management doesn't mean you get to do as you please, you still have the responsibility of being a role model for the rest of the team. The reason for that is that with incompetent management, it's on you to keep the order, not create more chaos. Especially when you are a team's captain.

There's no excuse for Pique's behaviour here. And with this, we covered three of the reasons Pique is so hated:

• His inconsistent performance since 2017

• His huge salary despite his lacklustre performance

• The fact that he still remained in the starting eleven

But, this leads us to a shadier territory which includes Pique's own business and its conflict of interest with Barcelona as well as what I consider the most important reason for Pique being so hated, his role of Messi leaving Barcelona. Both will be covered in the future.

In Conclusion

It's very difficult for any Barcelona fan to watch the way Pique was behaving without holding a certain level of resentment toward him. After all, we're talking about a player who isn't that good anymore on the pitch to at least justify his actions off the pitch. This problem is made worse as he was paid a lot in a club which had its name almost synonymous with the word "debt", all the while remaining in the starting eleven and becoming the team's face of defeat.