For a club that is in over €1.3 billion of debt, I have no idea how Barcelona is able to STILL sign players. Do the rules of debt repayment not apply to them?
There is no greater financial story in the world of European football than Barcelona’s horrific finance woes.
Everyone who follows football knows the former Barcelona president, Josep Bartomeu, mismanaged the club’s finances so badly, spending hundreds of millions of euros on failed transfers, signing average players to ludicrous contracts, etc., that he single-handedly turned the once “role model” club into a financial laughingstock.
It has gotten so bad in recent years that the club could not resign its greatest ever player, Lionel Messi, last summer as there was not enough space under their salary cap to fit Messi’s contract.
Even when Messi was willing to take a 50% pay decrease (still being one of the two best players in the world) to stay, Barcelona’s past salary mistakes blocked the club from fitting Messi under the cap threshold.
Even worse, the club’s oppressive debt would not allow them to sign the world’s best players (Neymar, Gerrad Pique, Marc-Andre Ter Stegen, etc.) anymore as they had done in past LaLiga and Champions League winning seasons,
Thus, last season Barcelona dropped out of the Champions League group stages for the first time in 20 years (2003/04). Funnily enough, that was the year prior to Leo Messi’s debut season.
Oh, did I forgot to mention that La Liga has imposed a -€144M salary cap for Barcelona next season? Yes, you read that correctly. The Catalan giants have a -€144M salary cap to buy new players with. How is that even possible!?!?
This all seems really bad, right? Well, somehow it might not be.
Already, Barcelona has been able to sign AC Milan’s Frank Kessie, Chelsea’s Andreas Christensen, and resigned winger Ousmane Dembele this summer. Plus, they are actively trying to buy Sevilla’s Jules Kounde, Bayern Munich’s Robert Lewandowski, Chelsea’s Marco Alonso, Chelsea’s Caesar Azpilicueta, and Leeds United’s Raphinha.
Mind you, this is all without selling anyone to offset any part of the debt, which would have free up some of their salary cap troubles.
Sure, some players have left on loan (Clement Lenglet to Tottenham), and Phillipe Coutinho joined Aston Villa on a permanent €22M move. But that is not nearly enough to overcome -€144M.
Kessie, Christensen, and Dembele might add another €50M onto their wage bill alone. Who knows what Robert Lewandowski’s (the world’s best striker) salary would do to it?
I know Barcelona has recently just sold off 15% of their La Liga TV rights for €200M, but that should be going into their €1.3 billon debt, right?
How will they ever pay off that insane debt if they just keep investing all of their revenues into new players? Also, how can La Liga allow them to just push off debt repayments indefinitely, if that is what they are doing? They can’t stay in €1.3 billion in debt forever, right?
Clearly, nothing about Barcelona makes sense to me (probably for most people as well). I’m just sorry for all Barcelona fans that they have had to put up with this mess for so long.
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