August 10 – Two days after Insideworldfootball and other media outlets reported that debt-ridden Barcelona are being blocked from registering all their summer signings by La Liga, there is still no breakthrough with the Spanish season almost upon us.
This is despite Barcelona having activated a so-called fourth ‘lever’ to meet LaLiga budget rules, by selling a further 24.5% of its Barça Studios production division for €100 million to American investment fund GDA Luma,
For weeks, Barca have defied footballing financial logic by going on a spending spree of more than €150 million despite their crippling debts. To meet LaLiga’s club financial rules they have also embarked on a sale of key assets, mandated by the members earlier in the year
To date Barca have sold a stake in their La Liga TV rights for the next 25 years to US private equity firm Sixth Street while the club has also offloaded 25% of Barca Studio to blockchain-based Fan Token specialist Socios.com
Barca Studio is the content production company which handles Barcelona’s digital output.
The first two deals are reported to have raised €767 million and the most recent, with another US investor, a further €100 million.
But it still doesn’t appear to be enough for Barca to reduce their debt repayments and hence their outgoings to bring them within the rules and enable them to register their five stellar signings – Robert Lewandowski, Jules Koundé, Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen and Raphinha.
Nor can two players who have recently renewed contracts that had expired – Ousmane Dembélé and Sergi Roberto – be registered under LaLiga’s financial rules.
Barca has been working to reduce its annual wage bill from €540 million to €400 million. LaLiga’s salary cap is based on whether the pre-season balance sheet has enough money to cover the summer transfer budget and proposed wage bill for the forthcoming season.
To do this Barca have been selling assets but auditors are reportedly refusing to take into account €100 million of the Sixth Street sale saying that it is overvalued.
Barca, will likely have to accelerated the sale of big earners Frenkie de Jong, Memphis Depay and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to make way for their new big earners.
The intention of the last asset sale was to finally allow Barca to name their new arrivals in the squad for their opening game against Rayo Vallecano on Saturday night.
But they are still to satisfy La Liga with the clock ticking before their opening game and the increasing likelihood that their “new” players will have to sit it out.
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