Adriana GarciaReading: 2 min.
the president of LaLiga, Javier Tebassaid it is ‘practically impossible’ for the Barcelona make any signings in the European summer market, in the middle of the year, due to the financial situation of the club.
Despite the outputs of Gerard Piquéwho retired, Memphis Depaywho went to Atletico Madrid and the transfer of Hector Bellerin for the SportingBarça were unable to sign any players in the January transfer window due to LaLiga’s Financial Fair Play regulations.
Speaking of Business Football Summit, Tebas warned Barça fans that they can expect a quiet summer. “I already announced and the president of the [Barça] [Joan] Laporta will call me and get angry,” said Tebas.
“It is practically impossible for Barcelona to sign players in the summer. A lot will have to change because, if not, the institution will be in trouble. We don’t let Barcelona sign players this winter and next summer. They will be able to sign players.”
Barça are also at odds with LaLiga over strict FFP rules. Earlier this year, Barça sued the competition over the league’s refusal to allow them to join other clubs to raise their salary cap by 15%.
The league argues that Barça have already raised the squad spending cap by 100% and that an additional 15% would therefore be discriminatory towards other clubs. “If with Barcelona, which is a very important club for LaLiga, we turned a blind eye to the economic issue, we would be doing a disservice to the competition itself,” said Tebas.
Laporta said in August 2021 that its board had inherited the club’s record debt of 1.35 billion euros (R$7.45 billion), but the sale of club assets – such as 25% of its domestic television rights for the next 25 years – last summer allowed Barça to reduce debt and spend more than 150 million euros (R$ 828 million) during that transfer window.
A solution to Barça’s financial problems would, according to Laporta, be for the Superliga project to move forward. The club is one of the founding clubs of the breakaway competition.
According to Laporta, the start of the Superliga would give Barça an initial bonus of 1 billion euros (R$ 5.5 billion) and would make the team more competitive. Meanwhile, Barça confirmed that the midfielder Sergi Roberto signed a contract extension with the club.
The deal means he will remain at Camp Nou until 2024 and has a €400m release clause.
