December 4 – Barcelona’s financial crisis has taken a massive hit with Carlos Tusquets, the club’s interim president, announcing that player salaries in January will be postponed.
Last week Barcelona announced that it had reached an agreement with the players on a pay cut to bring it in line with La Liga requirements. But crucially nothing was said about a month’s pay being slashed with the club pledging to maintain the status until the end of season.
“In January, players’ salaries cannot be paid,” Tusquets said. “We spoke to all the players’ agents and explained the situation. We also had a meeting with (manager Ronald) Koeman to explain the financial situation.”
Last month La Liga acted to keep club spending under control by reduced salary caps across its two leagues by more than €600 million because of the coronavirus pandemic. Clubs are currently on track to overspend their income by €500 million.
Barcelona will be the most affected club, having almost €300 million knocked off their spending power. The Catalan giants will see their wage cap down from €671.4 million last term, when they had the highest limit in La Liga, to €382.7 million for the 2020-21 season.
The news makes for grim reading for whoever takes over as the club’s new full-time president in March – and would appear to rule out any major signings in the January transfer window.
Tusquets said in a local interview that selling Lionel Messi in the summer would have helped but that the club now had to take harsh decisions as a result of the impact of Covid-19.
“If no players are sold, no players can be bought,” said Tusquets.
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