Barcelona's great financial 'remontada' as they add €800m to their spending limit

LaLiga announced on Friday the Cost Limit of the Sports Squad (LCPD) or salary limit for each First and Second Division team. In the case of Barcelona, they went from -144.353 million euros in March to a positive balance of 656.429 million euros. Barça, after activating levers (selling assets) has increased their spending limit by 800 million euros.

Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, and Javier Gómez, corporate general director of said body, at the LaLiga Headquarters and then answered questions from the media.

Barça

They highlighted the recovery of the salary limit by Joan Laporta, going from a negative value of -144.353 million to a positive value of 656.429 million, a 'comeback' that has allowed Barça to carry out an ambitious transfer market to regain competitiveness both nationally and internationally.

However, Tebas warned Barça that “they still have work ahead of them” and that “we will have to see what happens next season. They have 656 million now, but they have to reduce their salary mass because it is assumed that, next season, they will not use more levers, so they will have to reduce salaries. They know it, I don't think they will use more levers. They must reduce the salary mass to about 400 million.”

Tebas made it clear that Barça, in no case, received favorable treatment. “There has been no wide sleeve with Barça. The rules have been applied and Barça has submitted to them. This is how we have explained it to the clubs. To be able to incorporate Kounde, for example, the president had to sign off a bank guarantee."

The LaLiga chief added that Barça “have not been in danger of bankruptcy. What we have done is ensure their debt does not grow more, but I insist, that what they have to do now is reduce the wage bill. I think they will go down that route now rather than more palancas."

Transparency

Tebas also commented that “from LaLiga we have acted with transparency and always within the rules. Barça has had to sell 700 million worth of assets to put itself in order financially. We have to remember: we came out of a pandemic in which all the clubs have lost money."

Tebas insisted that “the real origin of Barcelona's debt is Covid-19 (394 million euros) and anticipating repayments that they did not have to do, but they did. "

Debt

Gómez, meanwhile. specified that "Barça's debt as of June 30, 2021 is 875 million euros, the figures that are disclosed in other places are exaggerated."

He added that the aforementioned amount was reflected on Barça's website and commented that it could be accessed “with just seven clicks”. Likewise, the corporate general director of LaLiga insisted that "I have heard that Barça's debt was 1,300 million, after 1,400 and if we continue like this it will soon reach a much higher figure."

Tebas, for his part, indicated that "Barça have never been at risk of bankruptcy because they have enough assets."