Barcelona has been dealt a significant financial blow as Manchester United continues to pursue Frenkie de Jong.
Barcelona attempted to register their new recruits with La Liga, but they fell €150 million short of the financial fair play regulations.
“Barcelona still cannot register their new players.“
“La Liga have rejected Barça’s calculations and believe the Spanish club are €150m away from their own valuation”
This is bad news for Barcelona, who assumed that by using “economic levers,” they would be able to operate within La Liga’s rules.
They have divested themselves of club assets, selling 25% of their television broadcast revenue to Sixth Street for the next 25 years.
This move may have produced almost a half-billion euros, but after reinvesting a large portion of that in new players on large contracts, the Catalan giants have pondered pulling a third lever.
Laporta intends to sell a portion of Barca Studios for €100 million, which would still fall well short of La Liga’s estimate.
As a result, hopes that the financial agreement would allow them to keep Frenkie de Jong on the books were crushed.
All of this came after a report from the Athletic highlighted Barcelona’s egregious financial situation.
During the examination, they discovered that during the tenure of Joan Laporta, the current president, Barcelona sought UEFA to use future Champions League broadcast revenues as security to request for a loan.
Barcelona now have a very short window to get players off their books, or they will face severe consequences from La Liga.
This would have been an unprecedented transaction that would have undoubtedly jeopardised the competition’s credibility.
If they approved the proposal, UEFA would have an incentive to retain Barcelona in their top flight at all costs in order to deter creditors from resorting to them if the Catalans failed to return the debt.
Fortunately, the response was a simple “no.”
The official from Barcelona who met with UEFA was stunned by this remark, saying it was unfair that considerations of sports merit applied to their historic club.
In Frenkie de Jong’s opinion, his present employers’ refusal to meet registration requirements drives him closer to the exit door.
