the League only validates part of Barça’s viability plan

BarcelonaThey say that he who warns is not a traitor. The League had been warning Barça for weeks that it would be very difficult to go out and sign this summer with the famous 1:1 rule, which allows one euro to be invested for every euro saved in salary. The club was hoping that the management would approve the feasibility plan and this Tuesday the definitive yes has arrived, but not all the expectations of the entity chaired by Joan Laporta have been met. Barça will be able to register the agreed renewals, yes, although it is still overbooked and cannot go to all of them for the most wanted signing of this summer, that of Leo Messi. It was a bitter victory.

Barça sent the viability plan to the League at the end of April and, a week later, Mateu Alemany and Ferran Oliver took advantage of the match against Rayo Vallecano to talk to the management. The director of football and the Blaugrana treasurer wanted to know first hand which ones inputs they had in the League. That day they already told them, as the ARA advanced, that the plan seemed “coherent” but, at the same time, insufficient. They let them know that Barça should take a step further, that they should demonstrate with facts that the proposal was viable. A few weeks later, the club sent more documentation to Madrid, while at the same time making a capital cut in all departments: it had pledged to save up to 150 million in management costs over two seasons.

Barça continues with the 40% rule

Last week, while Barça dismissed with all honors Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba, in the offices they received the first firm conclusions of the League. They knew they would get a half-hearted yes because, despite the effort, there were forty million savings left to return to the 1:1 rule. Therefore, that the feasibility plan went ahead, but that it only authorized the registration of those players who are already part of the squad. In other words, the renewal contracts of Gavi and Araujo are validated and there is also room for the renewals of Sergi Roberto, Marcos Alonso and Iñaki Peña. But the entity continues to exceed and, if it wants to go to the market, it must do so with the 40% rule.

Barça was waiting for this detail to be able to launch the final offensive for Leo Messi. And the only thing the club can say to the Argentine star is that he must continue to wait. In the football area, they had designed a rather ambitious plan to sell players and make room in the squad: freeing up players, reducing salaries and making money with the sale of players. One of them, Ansu Fati, for whom the organization hoped to obtain at least 50 million. With the 1:1 rule, his sale, added to the salary that the club would have saved, would have left around sixty million, enough money to hire Messi, sign Iñigo Martínez and close other juicy operations such as the arrival of Gündogan. But the reality is that, at the moment, the club will only be able to allocate 40% of the salary that is saved and 20% of the profit from its sale. In other words, following this hypothetical example, instead of the sixty million, he would only have 14 available. The difference is abysmal.