There will be news about the limit soon. Saturday, April 30, is the day that Barça will have to send a first draft budget for next year to the employer’s headquarters. It will be an approximation, but it will be used to calculate the famous top for the summer market. Not only will the Barça club have to do it, but all the 42 First and Second teams will have to complete this procedure. From there, the League will tell them how much they can spend to make the staff. That is, the margin they have left, if any. The result comes from the revenue projection minus management expenses. And this total also includes the losses that have accumulated in previous years. It is this backpack that is the most damaging for Barça and the one that makes it impossible for anyone to register at this time. Basically because the cost of the workforce is higher than the margin you have to spend. In technical terms, it is exceeded.
The salary cap is calculated from April 30
The documentation arrives in Madrid this Saturday and the official data will be known in June. In any case, the clubs will know it much earlier. In any case, it is more than likely that the figure that comes out will make your hair stand on end. However, this should not necessarily be an inconvenience. The limit set in the summer is not fixed but variable. Barça’s ability to sell players and make a profit, or the possibility of earning extra income with the CVC investment fund or selling part of Barça Studios – if that is the case – would give oxygen to the club.
Araujo, however, will be able to play for Barça next season without any problems. The reason is simple: the Uruguayan center-back is registered because his contract – the old one, not the one he will sign – expires in 2023. Therefore, even if the club is exceeded right now, the League had previously validated the footballer’s participation. for next year – the same goes for all the other players who have a contract beyond this June 30th. What the employers will have to do later, so that Barça send the paperwork to Madrid, is to see if the figures fit and if it authorizes this renewal. Once the green light has been given, Araujo will also be enrolled until the 2025/26 academic year.
Araujo’s new conditions come into force next season, but the League must validate them first
Management will not be imminent. According to League sources, as Barça currently exceeds the salary cap, it cannot carry out such operations, as it risks a sanctioning case. But the agreement between the club and Araujo has no effect this season but from next, which is when his salary is increased to more than three million net per year. That is why the club is in no hurry to submit the new contract and can wait until the financial situation is more favorable for it. A small, totally legal trap that allows President Laporta and the sports manager, Mateu Alemany, to guarantee the continuity of the center without sticking his fingers in it.
Barça cannot register any player or player who ends his contract
Regardless of this renewal, Araujo had a contract for next season and could play in the League. The same goes for Gavi, who also has a validated contract as a youth player. However, this is not the case with two footballers such as Sergi Roberto and Ousmane Dembélé, who are ending their ties with Barça on June 30 and are in negotiations to renew. For the purposes of the employer, and no matter how many years they have been at the Camp Nou, it is as if they were being re-signed. Exactly the same thing that happened with Leo Messi last summer, and that ended with the Argentine in Paris because the situation could not be resolved.
In addition to Sergi Roberto and Dembélé – the captain’s renewal seems to be on track, while the one at the end is much more complex – we must add the new additions that Laporta and Alemany already have, such as Kessié and Christensen. Four players who, right now, cannot be registered. Not to mention Haaland, which seems more than impossible because of the astronomical figures that would involve hiring him. In this market, the rule is maintained that allows surplus clubs to spend 25% of what they save on salaries if they sell or transfer a player. On the other hand, the one that gave an extra 25% of the profits of the transfers disappears and the one of 50% in the case of a franchise player – who represented 5% of the salary mass. But the clubs, which are due to meet soon in the assembly, could agree to reactivate these bonuses in an exceptional way for the summer market.
Regardless, the management is confident in Barça’s ability to move the strings so that it can make room for the players it will renew and those who will come – practically all at zero cost – in the same way as it did in the summer markets. and winter this season. Mateu Alemany is in direct contact with the employer, and these talks will increase in the summer, so the market for buying and selling footballers will open. But it would not be strange that, as in August and January, you have to suffer until the last minute to register someone. It will be a hot summer again at the Camp Nou offices.
