Barcelona's transfer business over the past five years or so has been pretty appalling - to say the least.

The Catalan club have spent humungous amounts of money on a number of players, with Ousmane Dembele, Philippe Coutinho and Antoine Griezmann all costing them over €100 million each.

All three have failed to live up to their enormous price tags at Barcelona.

Coutinho was such a bad fit that he was loaned to Bayern Munich for the 2019/20 season, Dembele seems to permanently be on the treatment table and the signing of Griezmann has proven to be a disaster.

The Frenchman never found anything close to his best form at Camp Nou and was allowed to re-join former club Atletico Madrid on loan this summer.

Diego Simeone's side can reportedly purchase Griezmann at the end of the season for as little as €40m, which is €80m less than what Barcelona paid for him.

Griezmann's Barcelona presentation

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And if you thought that laughable financial loss was the worst thing about the deal for the Blaugrana, wait until you hear this...

According to the director general of the club, Ferran Reverter, the hierarchy under former president Josep Maria Bartomeu realised they didn't have the money to pay for Griezmann on the night they actually signed him.

"We have the feeling that when players were signed, they [the former board] didn't know if they could sign them," Reverter said, per Marca.

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"This was the case in regards to Griezmann as, on the night they signed him, they realised that there was no money to pay [for him].

"They were looking for a loan of 85 million euros to cover that signing."

So basically, Reverter is suggesting that the former leadership team at Barcelona were basically making it up as they went along.

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The director general also stated that Barcelona's deal for Coutinho was actually worth far more than what was initially claimed.

"The signing of [Philippe] Coutinho had an additional financial cost of 16.6 million [euros]," he added.

Are Barcelona the worst run club in world football? It really is starting to look that way...