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sells 10% of television rights over the next 25 years

BarcelonaBarça and the American investment fund Sixth Street have reached an agreement for the acquisition of 10% of the club’s television rights in the League over the next 25 years. With this operation, the Catalan entity will end up generating a total capital gain of 267 million euros, of which 207.5 go directly into cash to save the budget for the current season (2021-22), which ends this Thursday. At the budgetary level, however, the total audited capital gain it computes is 267 million euros, which allows us to close the year with a positive balance.

The accounting nature of the operation is explained because the money must be computed in this way so that it goes to the revenue item, which until the activation of this lever was approximately 150 million below of what was contained in the plans of the directive (765). That is, 267.7 million is the audited price that has been estimated to have this 10% of television rights over a period of 25 years. In order to carry out this operation, Barça and Sixth Street have created a joint venture to make the sale and for the income to be calculated as profits. “Society is created to be able to recover the rights in 25 years. Without any direct contribution from Barça’s capital “, they assure ARA from the club. “The net income is 207.5 million, but the capital gain – which is the approximate calculation that television rights can go up in these years – that counts in the budgets makes the final operation is 267.5 million,” they add. . In the same way, they emphasize that since this is the total income that computes, this also supposes a small push more with the fair-play. That is, the more income, the more fair-play.

The operation is a big breath of fresh air for the current critic of the club, but it means mortgaging for 25 years a percentage of income that you will no longer have year after year in this whole period of time. Despite this, Joan Laporta has celebrated activating the first mechanism of survival in time: “We are activating the economic levers and executing our patient, sustainable and efficient strategy to strengthen the club’s financial base.” Sixth Street with which it has been negotiating practically until the last day, is also associated with Real Madrid of Florentino Perez. While accepting CVC’s proposal with the League was to go hand in hand with Javier Tebas, something that Barça did not want, the club is embracing a mutual fund of the rope of the white president, who is a defender of the Superliga, as the Barça president.

Along the way to reach this last agreement with Sixth Street, other options have been falling. Bank of America, which recently ruled out becoming Sabadell’s first shareholder, has not entered this first lever despite having tried. The path of Goldman Sachs, the main creditor of the institution, was also losing strength, although the US investment bank accepts that the club has done business with a part of the television rights it already has pledged with it.

What about signings?

This agreement allows Barça to catch their breath, but that is not enough to start signing and signing players. Following the strict rules of the League in economic control, the hole is not fixed only by activating levers such as Sixth Street, which serves to close the current year with profits. The losses accumulated in recent years – with the depreciation of players made by the current board at the end of 20/21 included – and the salary oversize of the first team force Joan Laporta and Mateu Alemany to make more decisions that allow them to strengthen the first team to make it more competitive.

In this sense, the sports area is working on the transfer operation of Frenkie de Jong, which becomes virtually essential. Even if Barça return the negative equity during this summer by activating more economic levers (BLM or more television), the sports area will continue to need a salary space to register new players in Xavi Hernández’s squad. The only nuance is that if you do it with the restored patrimony, you will be able to dedicate the same amount that you have previously released (the 1/1 rule). From the outbreak of the pandemic until now, and as he has not had enough income to make up for his economic hole, he has had to save in value between twice and four times what he wanted to register, which which explains operations as bizarre as having to renew Samuel Umtiti in the winter market last year to space his salary in more years.

Already well-known players such as Milan midfielder Franck Kessié and Chelsea center-back Andreas Christensen – who are already free this Friday – are waiting their turn to be announced as the next signings for Barça, as well as Robert Lewandowski, although negotiations with the Polish ram they are not at all advanced because Bayern Munich refuses to sit down and talk to Barça about it.

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