David Villa's wages holding up a deal?

David Villa is one of the most famous footballers in the world. He's a striker, he's Spain's all-time leading scorer and he plays for FC Barcelona. Surprise, he makes a lot of money! MARCA had a story today where they stated that Villa wants to go to the Premier League and Tito Villanova is not going to stand in his way, but that his wages will make a move difficult.

Here's the relevant part of the post.

[I]t won't be easy for him to leave even though Barça won't try to stop him. His biggest impediment is his high salary, around €8 million. Few clubs will be willing to take on such a high payslip for a player who will be 32 in December and has suffered an injury as serious as his (fractured tibia and fibula).

That salary, €8 million Euros per year, is the equivalent of around £130k per week. That would make him our highest paid player as of the moment, and probably put him just slightly behind what we'll eventually pay Gareth Bale if he decides he'd rather stick around than go to Real Madrid. Spurs will almost certainly be willing to loosen their wage structure a bit with the new TV contract kicking in, but it's still a pretty prohibitive cost.

For this deal to go through, Barcelona will probably have to ease off on the fee they want, or Villa will have to agree to take a pay cut. If Barcelona want £12 million for Villa and he wants to keep his £6.9m per year salary, that comes out to a total commitment of just over £32m. For a player of Villa's age whose production has noticeably declined, it's simply not worth it. Someone -- either Barca or Villa -- has to budge.

We give Daniel Levy shtick for squabbling over pennies until the last second, but in this case, he's in the right for not having gotten the deal done at the price it would take to wrap it up immediately. David Villa simply isn't worth a £32m commitment in transfer fee and wages over three years.