Atletico Madrid are trying to avoid £34m Barcelona transfer fee by playing just 28 MINUTES a game against Griezmann

ATLETICO MADRID are trying to avoid paying £34m for Antoine Griezmann – by playing him just 28 minutes a game.

The 31-year-old star is currently on loan at Madrid from Barcelona but has a contract full of clauses.

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Atletico will have to pay £34m to buy him permanently if he plays more than half of his games this season.

That commitment is only achieved if he plays a full 45 minutes of football in half the games.

UOL report that in order to avoid the clause being activated, Atletico will ensure that their playing time will be restricted.

In the first two La Liga games, he came off the bench at the same time and played exactly 28 minutes.

In their last game at Valencia, Griezmann’s time on the pitch was marginally shorter as he appeared in the 64th minute of the remaining 26 minutes of the game.

Although Diego Simeone has limited the Frenchman’s playing time to very specific blocks, he still managed to shine.

He scored two minutes after coming on as a substitute against Valencia, while scoring with 15 minutes left in the opening game at Getafe.

The only game in which he failed to impress was the home defeat against Villarreal, where Atlético had to send a player off.

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That means Atletico have started the season with six points out of nine, with Real Madrid and Real Betis the only teams starting at 100 percent.

Griezmann’s parent club Barcelona remain undefeated on the field but off the pitch the club continued to struggle.

As well as their creative attempts to solve their financial woes, the club have also clashed with the likes of Frenkie de Jong and Martin Braithwaite over unpaid wages and contract terminations.