Leverage, renewals, sponsorships, imprecise sales and wages: Barca’s trick to overcome La Liga’s financial controls

The template is FC Barcelona It costs approx. 400 million euros, while La Liga has imposed a team cost ceiling (LCPD) of 270 million through its economic controls.this organism reduced by nearly 400 million From the 2022/23 season to the 2023/24 season, this figure is 656 million euros. However, all Barcelona players have signed up to play.

How does La Liga calculate this limit? It involves subtracting three concepts (tickets, sponsorship and merchandise sales, television rights, player transfer proceeds, etc.) from annual revenue forecasts. These concepts are: non-athletic expensesmainly infrastructure and materials; Loss in previous years and debt repayments next year. If these concepts exceed expected revenue, it means the club is being exceeded.

“Barcelona must continue to do what it is doing,” La Liga president Javier Tebas said during a demonstration of economic controls implemented by La Liga outfit EA Sports and Hypermotion. But what is he doing?Barcelona’s trick to overcoming this control is Mass departures, renewal, and leverage No longer one of the 11 first and second clubs to be overtaken. The excess amount of 11 clubs is 200 million euros. According to “EL MUNDO”, 130 belongs to Barcelona.

If we talk about mass departures, Barcelona have got rid of them this year Kessie, Corrado, Chardi, Griezmann, Nico, Dembélé and Abboud And loaned out Julian Araujo, Dest, Lenglet, Ansu Fati and Eric.The revenue from these businesses is According to Transfermarkt data, 93.3 million euros. Among them, he only invested $5 for Romeu’s arrival. The rest of the companies are zero cost.

“We have to stop signing players when the club has them in order to be able to get rid of the wage burden. Staff costs are beyond your means”Javier Gómez, general manager of La Liga and the father of economic control established in Spanish football more than a decade ago, explained to ELMUNDO.

In addition, this year also promulgated the “Regulations on Budget Preparation of Sports Clubs and Listed Companies”, which regulates economic control, Article 100 has been changed The percentage of sales from new signings that can be reinvested in overextended clubs has been increased by 10%, from 40% to 50%. “Barcelona’s capacity has increased by 55 million,” Tebas confirmed when talking about Barca’s economic direction after the summer.

La Liga’s top leaders also dared to suggest selling a young star to Barcelona.Since the cost of such players to the club is zero, doing so means net income to balance the accounts. However, he clarified: “It doesn’t seem like he will do that. It depends on the club’s strategy, not the La Liga brand.”

contract extension

Another trick used by Barcelona is contract renewals. He used this strategy to renew contracts with several players last year. Reduce the amount they receive, but the payment period is extended. This is the case with Umtiti, who has left Barcelona.Recently, the club renewed Sergi Roberto’s contract, but 60% fewer chips Reduced from 4 million to 1.7.

Joao Félix’s Tips These are the two sides. After he professed his love to Barcelona, ​​Atletico Madrid decided to find a home for him outside the dressing room. Although it was initially thought that there would be no strengthening of direct rivals like Barcelona, ​​at market close the red and white offices did not make an offer for the Portuguese. decision to allow transfer To the Cule team, as long as he renews his contract with Atletico Madrid and reduces his salary.

Joao Felix has extended his contract until 2029, with Barcelona signing the Portuguese on loan. He was accused of earning an annual salary of 400,000 euros. However, La Liga has not estimated this figure to be realistic and believes the figure based on economic controls should be a net 4 million.

break the limit

“All companies try to squeeze the rules that control the economy,” explains Javier Gomez, continuing: “La Liga allows certain things but not others”.But Gomez also realizes that sometimes there are actions that La Liga cannot control because “Risk-Return” It pays off for them because these are small things and they would rather pay any fines owed. «If you go through a traffic light, sometimes they won’t catch you, it might be a foul, what I guarantee is no crime», explained the company director metaphorically.

Undoubtedly, Barcelona’s most used tool is the lever, named after Barcelona himself. Joan Laporta. This is a sale of the club’s assets with the aim of cleaning up its books.Last year Barcelona successfully raised about 900 million After selling part of the television rights, Barça Estudios and Barça Vision.

Although the idea of ​​​​the board is to reduce the club’s huge debt, which is approx. €1.35 billion plus €1.5 billion from Espai Barça (To be split between investor-backed bonds and bank financing). A portion of this leverage is also attributable to the entities’ short-term debt that affects financial equity.

The last trick is sponsorship, such as the one signed by Spotify in 2022, through which Barcelona will enter, according to Sport. 435 million euros over eight years. Arjana Argibay, a professor of sports law at the European University, believes that the article 31.9, which mentions sponsorship, is the most “loose” of La Liga’s economic controls, in which clubs have more autonomy when making declarations to the agency.Although at the time it was the verifier who subscribed to the announced value of the sponsorship, there were terms such as “economic need”, “market price” and “reasonable value” They make the club more relaxed. However, Tebas warned Barcelona that “although their sponsorship has increased, it does not increase their salary cap.”