The formula to save FC Barcelona's economy

A mathematical formula. An Excel sheet. And first-hand information. The economic control regulation is a cumbersome document that already exceeds a hundred regulations, but it is easily condensed into a balance of sums under one idea: do not spend more than what is generated. This is how economic control was born in 2013 to revitalise professional football because the disastrous management of some led some clubs to difficult situations.

There’s a financial fair play set-up that the pandemic has stressed, patched with temporary solutions to give clubs air to breathe without losing the discipline achieved in the past. And there is FC Barcelona, who got carried away in 2017 with Josep Maria Bartomeu and his obsession with one billion in revenue and was strangled by Covid-19. La Liga, in their now traditional press conference to announce the salary limits after the winter market, announced that the Blaugrana are the first whose spending ceiling is negative, and it is at minus 144 million euros. What does this mean? That Barça can’t pay players? That a footballer must pay to wear the Blaugrana shirt?

Let's go bit by bit. La Liga communicates to each club before each transfer window how much it can allocate to salaries and amortizations for footballers’ transfer fees. The figure is the result of adding all the guaranteed income for the season (for transfers and box office, the average of the three previous years is counted), a figure from which is subtracted what it costs to keep the club operational, the amounts of debt that must be returned in the next twelve months and, if there were losses before, also that figure. For what? To ensure that, once the spending on the squad has been committed, the club will be able to meet all their payments with third parties.

That formula worked relatively well, until Bartomeu chose to take advantage of the high capital gains from the sale of Neymar to enter a hamster wheel whereby each year he announced higher incomes than he had guaranteed. Thus, he presented a budget that fit Barca’s assembly and adjusted to the rules of La Liga to receive the approval of the salary limit. At the end of the year, the trades arrived that saved one year to mortgage the following ones.

That wheel, which some of us criticised for being too risky for a club without a great patron behind it, burst with the pandemic. The collapse of income and the freezing of the transfer market caused a hole of 101.2 million in 2019-2020. This situation forced drastic measures that did not occur in 2020-2021, such as a new salary reduction (Real Madrid achieved a general 10% reduction) and the sale of footballers. Nothing the rest of the clubs didn't do.

However, the inability of the outgoing board to impose itself on the locker room, together with the inaction of the management and the restructuring imposed by the incoming board, explain those 144 million negative euros. In fact, Barça started La Liga with a salary limit of 97 million because the employers already expected losses of almost 240 million in May 2021. But the devaluation of the workforce (138 million) and the allocation of provisions (90 million) aggravated the situation. Not because it supposes that the club was worse off, but because the rule was thought so that each year the losses of the previous one are absorbed. And that automatically implies that there is less margin on paper for players.

We say on paper, because no head can contain the figure which the football management captained by Mateu Alemany works with. Barça is exceeding the limit, like 14 other teams, but it is not breaching economic control: it registers players based on what income they make with the flexibility that Javier Tebas introduced two summers ago. An insult for many, an excess of freedom think those who did comply with the rules and see favoured treatment for the Blaugrana. It all depends on the scarf you wear. There are no fines or punishments, despite the fact that this year 470 million sports salary bills will be paid by the club.

And the same will happen in 2022-2023. Barça will register players based on what funding they free up. But let no one confuse registering with sustainability. The club today is still very far from the expected economic sustainability. So yes, extraordinary operations such as those of CVC, Barça Studios or sales of players with cache will be important, necessary and urgent steps. Meanwhile, it makes little sense to think about competing for the big names this summer.