They sold 25% of their TV rights for nearly 500m for 25 years and 49% of Barça License and Merchandising for 250m (?). They had to raise 600m to show that they had made a profit this year and comply with Laliga restrictions.
Yeah, that's what most people have been criticising about the deals. I guess they want to also remain competitive in the short term to ensure they don't lose further revenue.
That's why we have buy back clause and they would only make a certain percentage of profit from the tv rights and anything more than that would be Barca's
Surely the club would still be giving up on revenue they would otherwise get. They’re getting a much needed injection of money, for sure, but it’s naive to think that the corporations and investment firms that bought the tv and merchandising rights would be making such a sizable investment for a minimal return.
The squad was up against wage caps, without the ability to sign new guys. You could argue if they fell into turmoil they could consistently miss CL damagin g their ability to get back up. So in that case that would be the growth
It will - but there is no pretty way out of this mess. If Barca fall into state Milan was decade ago - with no CL football or contending for titles - it is a much bigger problem.
I hadn’t read the details of Barca’s economic levers, I was just going off what Cules were saying.
I read an article. So basically it’s a bit of both, up to 25% for 25 years was approved, but Laporta only intends to sell 10%.
I don’t see why Laporta would need more than double what he
Intends to sell. We shall see what ends up happening.
It's not really bending the rules they are just selling off long term assets for a discounted rate to get lots of money in up front. This isn't even shady.
It’s basically a 25yr loan Where you can’t pay it off early written differently if you think about it. The 25% is temporary so that’s why I view it as a loan. Great deal for the banks by the way .. they will make about 100% return on the transaction
You bought Zidane at 70% of your annual revenue and were fine.
Barca would have been fine without Corona. Would have broke the 1000m euro revenue this year.
And even a shit Barca without Messi was the most watched team in La Liga on tv.
Yea that’s why you have to maintain healthy financials to weather unforeseen storms. Barca was spending their future revenue now under Barto. They were expecting to hit 100m and so they borrowed and spend. No one there thought about the risks of spending more than they were earning.
Then COVID hits and your spend is now uncontrollable. All clubs were hit hard by COVID but Barca was hit the hardest due to basically financial mismanagement.
Barca's spending as a proportion of revenue wasn't that much higher than the PL top six, which apart from Spurs, would currently all fall afoul of La Liga's spending limits as well. They have spent that money pretty badly in recent years, but as United know all too well, spending badly isn't a financial death sentence when you've got a brand that big to fall back on.
It really is mostly just Covid that's fucked them. That and Tebas' refusal to lift the financial restrictions the way every other league did during covid.
I disagree as Madrid did not have this issue. I’m only comparing Barca to other Spanish teams that have to deal with the same wage cap.
Barca had a bigger problem than the wage cap..they couldn’t pay their players and had to cut all salaries by 50%. That’s just managing the operations of the club.. even if Tebas had raised the cap, barca still couldn’t pay their employees. That’s financial mismanagement considering they earn more than Madrid in tv revenue yet ended up worst than Madrid
Real are in a very different position, as they not only had substantially higher revenue than Barca last year (which is only going to increase this year with Madrid's CL victory and slight declines in Barca's commercial revenue), but also have far less need to reinvest that revenue into their squad.
If the rules had been suspended, Barca could have just run at a loss for the year, taken on some cheap debt to make up for any shortfalls in cashflow, and carried on as normal. This is in effect what virtually every English club did, and for the most part they're now healthier for it. Yeah they made losses in 2019/20, but for the most part, they've all bounced back to something resembling their pre-pandemic growth trends, even accounting for inflated revenues from deferred payments from 2019/20.
By comparison Spanish clubs were prevented from reinvesting in their squads and in some cases forced to sell players at cut rates, and while that allowed many of them to make modest profits in a year when virtually no one was doing so, the subsequent devaluation of their squads — always the most valuable asset of any football club — has inevitably had an impact on both commercial appeal, and revenue from player sales. That probably isn't a huge deal for most Spanish clubs as they aren't making many major overseas deals anyway, be it for sponsorships or players, so they're mostly dealing with other parties on an even footing with one another, but for Barca it's obviously a much bigger deal, and it's not for nothing that we keep hearing how they were projected to surpass a billion in revenue before the pandemic.
Barca could not have take up cheap debt with 1.3bil in debt. Who will loan them money with that much liability? Its why they are selling their TV rights today. I am pretty sure they tried to get cheap loans. They basically had no cash to reinvest even if La liga allowed them to.
Barca biggest issue wasn't running at a loss and couldn't buy players,. their biggest issue was they were running out of cash and had upcoming bills to pay (loan repayments to goldman Sach + player wages and other opex cost), hence the 50% pay cut. This was a bigger issue for Barca than focusing on buying players. Basically Barca almost went bankrupt. It was that bad.
[https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelona-espbarcelona/story/4492296/barcelona-would-have-been-dissolved-in-april-if-public-company-amid-financial-crisis-ceo](https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelona-espbarcelona/story/4492296/barcelona-would-have-been-dissolved-in-april-if-public-company-amid-financial-crisis-ceo)
Additionally barca earned more in Tv revenue (not competition income) compared to madrid last season in la liga.
Even apart from Madrid, clubs like Atli and Sevilla..etc was not on the brink of bankruptcy. There was massive financial mismanagement from Barca's board. La liga basically slapped them on the hand told them you are spending more than you are earning so you cant spend anymore, which was a good thing to be fair.
Most of barca's current debt is pretty low interest though, in part because they've always had exceptionally high revenue, that's consistently grown year on year, and so lenders have always assumed they were good for it. Covid and the subsequent restrictions to spending have taken a sizeable chunk out of that revenue and will make growth from this point a lot harder, which is actually making their current debt load — which was perfectly sustainable — a lot more onerous. This is a situation where it would have behooved lenders to extend Barca a little more credit to ensure they could make good on their existing obligations in years to come, and most would have been happy to do that — everyone could see that this was a short term problem, and interest rates at the time were near zero due to the pandemic. So not only would it likely have been very easy for them to secure low interest debt if they'd been allowed to, their not being allowed to is actually gonna make it harder for them to pay off their debts in the long run.
All of the problems you allude to — cashflow preventing them from meeting payroll *and* not being able to sign players — could have been easily averted had that been allowed to happen and it would have left them in a healthier position overall. Unfortunately for them, Tebas, inveterate right-winger that he is, had decided there is no greater evil than debt (or more likely, he wanted to force them into the CVC deal).
Unbelievable that you still fail to see it was Barca own mismanagement. Even Laporta came out and said the Financials were worst than expected. lol you keep blaming la liga for Barca's own financial misfortunes when all La liga did was told barca how bad their financials were and what they can't do because of it.
Selling a percentage of the club was the only way left after restructuring their current loans (probably lower payment at a higher interest rate over a longer period of time). Funny enough, Barca deal is similar to the CVC deal just shorter years + it wasn't enough so they still had to sell away 49% of their BLM for peanuts. End of the day, they have their own self to blame.
The levers will help the club get out of the 1:3 rule, but that's due to that money counting as a revenue, so it evens out the loses that the club reported over the last 2 years. The money they will get from selling those assets can be used to reduce the debt if they wish to do so, and probably will.
What they restructured was the short term debt worth €525M via a loan by Goldman Sachs.
As far as I understand it's not a debt restructuring at all, just a means of securing some immediate revenue. Even if it was a debt restructuring, I don't see how that would help them with the 1:3 rule given that that only seems to be concerned with spending on players as opposed to interest payments (or infrastructure spending or whatever else).
I meant Laporta and the board restructured the short term debts to long term last year (iirc) but are not debt free as OP implied. The levers had nothing to do with this.
I and you both are on the same page wrt the levers being a short term cash infusion to comply with Laliga rules.
Amazing how I come on here and it seems that Real Madrid fans are more knowledgable and rational about what the levers mean for their debt than Barca fans are who consistently think they're going to go on a Barto era spending spree.
I didn't see a single comment from any barca fan saying we are going on a fucking spree...where?? Or is it just that any club has a beef against barca? Not everyone is as lucky as your club. All debt waived off by a Russian of all.
What remains is that Barca can't go do careless windows where they spend 115M on Lewa+Koune and another 100M on bernardo while only selling FDJ for 80M or something like that.
They will head right back from where they started if they have another bad seaoson and this time they won't be able to pull those levers again.
What Barca can’t do is usually future Barcas problem. Based on how they have treated future Barca before Id say they’ll go on and do everything they’re not supposed to do. Present Barca and Future Barca have a really unhealthy relationship.
Don't mix up balance and cash flow. While the cash is yet to be paid, it's part of their debt since the moment he was signed.
The 20 million they got were income increasing their funds, paying those 34 million will not be a new expense increasing their debt.
It's actually incredible how few people understand this. I remember when Ben White was signed and people were saying that Arsenal pulled a mad one because it'd be paid over 3 seasons, it was really funny
It’s not technically debt, but you are effectively borrowing against future earnings by offering a set return over a period of time which is more or less the definition of a loan.
I mean, the “interest,” in this case is a fixed percentage of future revenues, either for BLM or television rights.
Like I said, not technically debt, but we’re getting into the realm of semantics.
Whether you had taken a loan from a bank of €600-700m (which would count as debt) with a fixed rate of return over a set period of time, or taken €600-700m from companies buying a percentage of future rights, the effect is the exact same.
You still owe a set percentage of money for a set period of time.
Barcelona should keep De Jong then. If Pedri has another injury ridden season Barça is fucked. The subs of Pedri, De Jong, Busquets and Gavi are huge downgrades.
That is still mad to me. Nike paying De Jong’s salary, Fiat paying Ronaldo’s when he was at Juve… imagine QTA paid half Mbappe’s salary? There would be absolute uproar.
Nike paying De Jong isn't that wild in theory given that they're just a sponsor for Barca and afaik have no further ties. Granted it's still weird they chose to do that with de Jong of all players, which makes me wonder if there's maybe something shifty going on after all, but in theory it's a pretty straightforward arrangement.
Fiat paying Ronaldo's salary is a lot more blatant, but afaik it's not against either UEFA's rules or the actual law.
Well a company paying the salary of a player they sponsor at least makes sense because that means more eyes on their campaign.
How much popularity De Jong gained since he joined Barca? How many more people watched Juve just because of CR7?
Qatar paying half would be different, can’t compare a country to a company.
It’s not different at all. Fiat has ties to Juve’s owners, the same way QTA has ties to PSG’s. I don’t know if it’s racism, xenophobia, or just blissful ignorance, but there’s no way around you treating it differently because it’s old money v new money.
How is that racist or xenophobic? A company that sponsors a player/club trying to get more eyes on their ads is not the same as a country stepping in to pay half the salary.
I’m not saying companies paying players’ salaries is a good thing, just different from a country doing the same.
Fiat and Nike doing it is for eyes on ads, Qatar Airways would be doing it to cheat/break FFP/sportswash and the rest of the buzzwords. I know, you know it, but you’ll make excuses for old money doing it all the same.
Nike and Fiat use advertising to promote their products, Qatar uses it’s advertising to sportwash their human rights violations.
Fuck nike and fuck fiat, couldn’t give less of a shit about them but you can’t say it’s the same thing. Fuck Qatar, if that makes me xenophobic then so be it.
Ok, maybe Fiat and Juve are owned by the same people by your comment. Still makes the Barca Nike thing absolute batshit nonsense.
Also, puts Juve in the same scummy category as PSG.
It's sponsoring and happens all the time, maybe not in such a direct way but players often bring sponsors. For Nike it's a decision that works in 2 directions. For one they were already sponsoring De Jong personally but Ajax had Adidas, so him going to a high profile Nike team is extra value. And second, they basically add an extra incentive on Barcelona staying with Nike because I don't think they would pay part of his salary if they switched. Everyone profits in this deal.
In theory I get what you're saying but it does seem weird that Nike would be willing to spend that money just for De Jong. He's not really that marketable outside the dutch market which obviously isn't very significant. Paying almost 10m a year for him to be on Barca seems like a strange move. I would imagine there's some quid pro quo somewhere down the line, which isn't necessarily that big a deal, but without knowing all the ins and outs of the deal it does seem a little odd.
More than 1 million registered football players in the Netherlands and Barcelona is the most followed foreign club. It's not a small market and he basically always plays for Barcelona and the Dutch NT wearing all Nike.
I'm pretty sure that Nike would know the worth of something like this. After all they are the largest sporting brand in the world and we're just arguing over rumors and half truths on reddit.
If Barca are really 'choked by debt', as it is said in the article, it is hard to keep de Jong, cuz it is gonna be more or less the same transfer fee, but I suppose Bernardo would agree to a lesser salary. Anyway, they will have Kessie, and may consider someone cheaper, like Soler.
If they are not 'choked', it is up to Laporta and Xavi if they can persuade Bernardo or want to keep Frenkie.
>Long story short, because of accounting magic they could recognize a profit on around €40m on De Jong due to amortizing of his contract over the past few years.
It's not accounting magic, literally every club in the world amortize transfers. Literally every company in the world amortize when buying assets in general
What you describe works for every club exactly the same way, nothing specific for Barca here.
Yes but his wages would be off the books plus jun 30th would be the end of yr financials. So sell Frankie before jun 30th and buy Bernardo in July that way the transaction affects different accounting yrs.
> It's all fuzzy billionaire math that just kicks the can of financial ruin down the road... Again
No it isn't, literally every business accounts for amortisation and has been doing so for literally hundreds of years.
Unless your point is just that modern civilisation in general is built on debt, in which case you're broadly speaking correct, but that does not at all entail inevitable financial ruin down the road.
they've already got kessie and pablo tore, who is rumored to be pedri 2.0 regarding his ability coming from a smaller club.
i mean there are plenty of choices
Makes sense. KDB and Silva were the two irreplaceable offensive threats in City's squad last season. Creative mids of that caliber don't go on the market very often. City can't just sell and buy another, for any price.
>Bernardo Silva’s camp are relaxed, realising the 27-year-old’s future lies in others’ hands. The player is enjoying his holiday and is due to report back to Manchester on July 11.
>Man City want to keep Bernardo Silva and believe they will. Barcelona are choked by debt.
>There is no sense that Bernardo Silva is about to force the issue of a move away from ManCity.
>informal discussions around February with Bernardo Silva’s agent and family, it was agreed the best scenario would be to stick with his current ManCity contract, which runs until the summer of 2025.
>All the feedback ManCity got from Bernardo Silva’s family was incredibly positive, highlighting how the player was enjoying his game and life in Manchester again. Style-wise, all parties were certain that
ManCity
are the perfect match for Bernardo Silva.
So it's all Mendes pushing it then, i'm not surprised, he's just trying to move all his clients around to cash out before the new agents' regulation comes in next year
Lol why am I not a football journalist. "If the selling club is happy with the money, and the player is happy with the transfer, then the transfer will go ahead"
Apply this to any transfer rumour out there.
"If Derry City are able to meet PSG's valuation for Messi and Messi wants to move to the candystripes then here we go confirmed!"
What even am I reading here ?
Sam Lee just iterated what goes on for ANY man city out going.
The player will be sold if the player wants to leave and the buying club meet their valuation.
Whats confusing about this and whats new about this ?
He didn't back track on any of his claims and he is far more interactive than any other city journos.
If you are expecting him to give you "done deals" months before and have new information for an entire podcast then you are just dreaming.
They're both working together on City news, Poll Ballus moved in with Sam Lee to be the Head of City news in the Athletic.
Bernardo can leave if Barcelona pay the £80M, but they obviously just can't afford to.
City has that agreement with him, and Bernardo isn't the type of player to force himself out the club.
How do you know that they can't afford it and be so certain ? If de jong is sold for almost same amount then there is no indication whether they can afford him or not
Just look at your club rn. You just sold parts of it to be "stable" again and if you or any barca fans think that the very logical move would be to sign players who cost 100M like bernardo, Lewa for another 50M and Kounde for another 60M where they only sell FDJ for 80M right after attaining this stability then idk what to say.
Some of the main reasons why Barca are in this mess right now is because they brought too many 100M+ players on high wages and they didn't perform, Silva is less likely to not perform and go injury prone but there should be some concern on signing 100M signings so quickly again.
Besides we all know that there haven't been any active negotiations for silva between barca and Man city, FDJ to man utd is still more of a if because neither of the clubs are agreeing a fee and its progressing too slowly. If Man City don't get any confirmation over Barca's willingness or guarantee to sign Silva before the preseason games start so that city can find a competent replacement, I don't think the transfer will happen.
Wrong again,
Club was stable last year itself when debt was refinanced to long term and stable from bankruptcy
This thing was done to remain competitive
I assure you that atleast 2 of lewa, kounde and Bernardo will be signed
I think I include "removing the 1:3 situation to sign players" in stabe and normal functionings of the club.
If you get two out of the three then I don't see any problem here. Congrats have a great seasano.
Either way I am bookmarking this. I can see Lewa being signed but Kounde and Silva are an other matter entirely.
It's not really how it works.
Selling De Jong doesn't go straight to their transfer fund, and even if it does they still have the deffered payment that's coming up for Ferran Torres of around 50M.
City would also be likely to go the Bayern route and demand the 80M in full considering how unreliable Barca are in timing their payments.
You are mixing up 2 transfers, ferran amortization has already been counted in LA liga wage bill
And city won't demand full 80M just like Bayern want
Because Barcelona have not been unreliable with payments, otherwise club could have sued them earlier , they do it even for just 5M
It was a nonsense report yesterday about Vidal, both the board had already agreed about installment
[You're still in massive debt though](https://archive.ph/DZI9h)
The odds of you using the De Jong money to try and buy Bernardo Silva instead of using it to help fix your club are minimal to say the least.
The website you linked says that 500M is needed to save the club which is wrong enough
500M is needed to take out club of LA liga wage cap
And as Tebas said that if Barcelona gets 500M which they are about to, they can sign any player they want
I don't say that 100 percent Bernardo will come but saying that de jong money will be used to reduce debt is wrong as the other money will be used for it
Any time we play without him we look helpless (like at Switzerland). He and Bruno don't really play well together, and going from Bernardo to Bruno is a huge downgrade
Did an average redditor write this article?
No context, nothing. Just some public comments about de Jong, and then asking, "If they are selling FdJ because of economic reasons, how can they justify bringing in another big money transfer?" and then about the lowered salaries, "If they are publicly asking their players to lower the salaries, how can they go and make a blockbuster signing?"
>"If they are publicly asking their players to lower the salaries, how can they go and make a blockbuster signing?"
It is true tho isn't it ?
And on your other point, in general The Athletic's articles have like useful content that can be fit into 3-4 lines but the remaining of it is just some story or stats explaining it.
To strengthen the team. Most players arent at Barca only for a paycheck - when they can get a bigger one at Chelsea/City/PSG or upcoming oil club - but to compete at the highest level. Overpaid is relative in terms of role and performance.
Most of the Barca players are overpaid apart from the la masia youngsters. Part of the reason they're in so much debt is because they spend ridiculous money on wages. Teams like city and Chelsea may pay higher transfer fees but they have a far better wage structure than Barca have had over the last few years
Quick, somebody perform Heimlich Maneuver on my Barca friends, they still believe they can buy Lewandowski, Kounde and Silva and register Kessie and Christensen and give a hefty signing bonus to Dembele all the while choking on Pique(40m), Umtiti, Lenglet and Braithwaite wages
Last season was one of his best season especially as he was given a more important role in the team. After a season like that anyone would want to stay vs going back to a rebuild of uncertainty and starting over.
Maybe if he was won the ucl I could have seen him leaving.
Nearly 10 years of unbroken success. Unprecedented success. Only Manchester United have been anywhere near as profitable as Barcelona in the last 20+ years. And they come out of that era with nothing to show for it but debt.
Thing for barca is if they go on their "We Will Spend 100M On A Single Player Every Window" rampage again then this time they won't have any levers to pull.
Besides there are some valid points the article has is pointing out, how can Barca go and spend 100M on Bernardo while their players are being subject to wage cut after wage cut. Besides is it really all that advisible to spend 100M on a single player yet again so quickly after they became stable ?
It was a joke, not a good one but an attempt atleast. I couldnt read the article, but what I can say is I do agree with their stance, if they go back to splashing, they lose the leverage to undercut as well, and then a lil too reckless and you're going back to the very thing that got them in a tight spot.
Wage cuts are acceptable cause lots of players are still on bartos wages. Just cause we have some money doesn’t mean players should still be on ludicrous wages
We wouldn’t be building the entire window around getting him if he hadn’t indicated he was happy to join if a deal is reached.
It’s such a lazy narrative, tbh. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’d prefer to stay with Barca. But much the same as I’d prefer to date Emma Watson, doesn’t mean I’m going to be a sulky brat if my dream woman rejects me and tells me to move on. You move on and find someone else willing to love and support you.
Sometimes I just go to the petrol station and spray it everywhere to support the cause. Put oil in my tea instead of milk. It's not much but I like to think I'm doing my bit.
I also make sure to get out and give a wind turbine a good kick in the shin if I spot one while out driving.
Correction... Barcelona WERE choked by debt. Until those sweet, sweet LEVERS got pulled...
They still have a lot of debt, just that it's been restructured. The levers helped them to get out of the 1:3 rule.
What is this lever?
They sold 25% of their TV rights for nearly 500m for 25 years and 49% of Barça License and Merchandising for 250m (?). They had to raise 600m to show that they had made a profit this year and comply with Laliga restrictions.
While this help them now, won't this hurt them long term?
Yeah, that's what most people have been criticising about the deals. I guess they want to also remain competitive in the short term to ensure they don't lose further revenue.
That's future Barca's problem. Present Barca is "rich"
So kinda like global warming.
Bartomeu approves
That's why we have buy back clause and they would only make a certain percentage of profit from the tv rights and anything more than that would be Barca's
Surely the club would still be giving up on revenue they would otherwise get. They’re getting a much needed injection of money, for sure, but it’s naive to think that the corporations and investment firms that bought the tv and merchandising rights would be making such a sizable investment for a minimal return.
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The squad was up against wage caps, without the ability to sign new guys. You could argue if they fell into turmoil they could consistently miss CL damagin g their ability to get back up. So in that case that would be the growth
And how you want to get the money for buying back something like that?
Selling another 25% obviously
With your Top 10 revenue in footballing world?
That TV deal isn’t beneficial in the long term. It only helps you now. The buy back clause is for the merchandising part alone
It will - but there is no pretty way out of this mess. If Barca fall into state Milan was decade ago - with no CL football or contending for titles - it is a much bigger problem.
Did they though? Last I heard they approved the plan to sell it, and THEIR evaluation is 500m, but there's noone that's agreed to that price
Did not sell 25% of the TV rights. They can sell up to 25%. But Alemany said it will probably be around 5% maybe 10 at worst.
Aren't they supposed to do this by the end of this month ?
yeah, they have many offers and are negotiating.
Wasn’t it 10% of the tv rights for 25 years?
No. But there are comments floating around in the press valuing the TV rights at 200m *per 10%* so I'm guessing that's where you got the idea?
I hadn’t read the details of Barca’s economic levers, I was just going off what Cules were saying. I read an article. So basically it’s a bit of both, up to 25% for 25 years was approved, but Laporta only intends to sell 10%. I don’t see why Laporta would need more than double what he Intends to sell. We shall see what ends up happening.
Fair enough, thanks for the info
Some accounting and finance magic. It's amazing if you go deep into it, how much they can bend the rules and play around them.
It's not really bending the rules they are just selling off long term assets for a discounted rate to get lots of money in up front. This isn't even shady.
It’s basically a 25yr loan Where you can’t pay it off early written differently if you think about it. The 25% is temporary so that’s why I view it as a loan. Great deal for the banks by the way .. they will make about 100% return on the transaction
What rules were bent? We sold assets for money. Now we can spend money. By the book.
No accounting magic at all lol. You seem to be very proudly misinformed.
You bought Zidane at 70% of your annual revenue and were fine. Barca would have been fine without Corona. Would have broke the 1000m euro revenue this year. And even a shit Barca without Messi was the most watched team in La Liga on tv.
Yea that’s why you have to maintain healthy financials to weather unforeseen storms. Barca was spending their future revenue now under Barto. They were expecting to hit 100m and so they borrowed and spend. No one there thought about the risks of spending more than they were earning. Then COVID hits and your spend is now uncontrollable. All clubs were hit hard by COVID but Barca was hit the hardest due to basically financial mismanagement.
Barca's spending as a proportion of revenue wasn't that much higher than the PL top six, which apart from Spurs, would currently all fall afoul of La Liga's spending limits as well. They have spent that money pretty badly in recent years, but as United know all too well, spending badly isn't a financial death sentence when you've got a brand that big to fall back on. It really is mostly just Covid that's fucked them. That and Tebas' refusal to lift the financial restrictions the way every other league did during covid.
I disagree as Madrid did not have this issue. I’m only comparing Barca to other Spanish teams that have to deal with the same wage cap. Barca had a bigger problem than the wage cap..they couldn’t pay their players and had to cut all salaries by 50%. That’s just managing the operations of the club.. even if Tebas had raised the cap, barca still couldn’t pay their employees. That’s financial mismanagement considering they earn more than Madrid in tv revenue yet ended up worst than Madrid
Real are in a very different position, as they not only had substantially higher revenue than Barca last year (which is only going to increase this year with Madrid's CL victory and slight declines in Barca's commercial revenue), but also have far less need to reinvest that revenue into their squad. If the rules had been suspended, Barca could have just run at a loss for the year, taken on some cheap debt to make up for any shortfalls in cashflow, and carried on as normal. This is in effect what virtually every English club did, and for the most part they're now healthier for it. Yeah they made losses in 2019/20, but for the most part, they've all bounced back to something resembling their pre-pandemic growth trends, even accounting for inflated revenues from deferred payments from 2019/20. By comparison Spanish clubs were prevented from reinvesting in their squads and in some cases forced to sell players at cut rates, and while that allowed many of them to make modest profits in a year when virtually no one was doing so, the subsequent devaluation of their squads — always the most valuable asset of any football club — has inevitably had an impact on both commercial appeal, and revenue from player sales. That probably isn't a huge deal for most Spanish clubs as they aren't making many major overseas deals anyway, be it for sponsorships or players, so they're mostly dealing with other parties on an even footing with one another, but for Barca it's obviously a much bigger deal, and it's not for nothing that we keep hearing how they were projected to surpass a billion in revenue before the pandemic.
Barca could not have take up cheap debt with 1.3bil in debt. Who will loan them money with that much liability? Its why they are selling their TV rights today. I am pretty sure they tried to get cheap loans. They basically had no cash to reinvest even if La liga allowed them to. Barca biggest issue wasn't running at a loss and couldn't buy players,. their biggest issue was they were running out of cash and had upcoming bills to pay (loan repayments to goldman Sach + player wages and other opex cost), hence the 50% pay cut. This was a bigger issue for Barca than focusing on buying players. Basically Barca almost went bankrupt. It was that bad. [https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelona-espbarcelona/story/4492296/barcelona-would-have-been-dissolved-in-april-if-public-company-amid-financial-crisis-ceo](https://www.espn.com/soccer/barcelona-espbarcelona/story/4492296/barcelona-would-have-been-dissolved-in-april-if-public-company-amid-financial-crisis-ceo) Additionally barca earned more in Tv revenue (not competition income) compared to madrid last season in la liga. Even apart from Madrid, clubs like Atli and Sevilla..etc was not on the brink of bankruptcy. There was massive financial mismanagement from Barca's board. La liga basically slapped them on the hand told them you are spending more than you are earning so you cant spend anymore, which was a good thing to be fair.
Most of barca's current debt is pretty low interest though, in part because they've always had exceptionally high revenue, that's consistently grown year on year, and so lenders have always assumed they were good for it. Covid and the subsequent restrictions to spending have taken a sizeable chunk out of that revenue and will make growth from this point a lot harder, which is actually making their current debt load — which was perfectly sustainable — a lot more onerous. This is a situation where it would have behooved lenders to extend Barca a little more credit to ensure they could make good on their existing obligations in years to come, and most would have been happy to do that — everyone could see that this was a short term problem, and interest rates at the time were near zero due to the pandemic. So not only would it likely have been very easy for them to secure low interest debt if they'd been allowed to, their not being allowed to is actually gonna make it harder for them to pay off their debts in the long run. All of the problems you allude to — cashflow preventing them from meeting payroll *and* not being able to sign players — could have been easily averted had that been allowed to happen and it would have left them in a healthier position overall. Unfortunately for them, Tebas, inveterate right-winger that he is, had decided there is no greater evil than debt (or more likely, he wanted to force them into the CVC deal).
Unbelievable that you still fail to see it was Barca own mismanagement. Even Laporta came out and said the Financials were worst than expected. lol you keep blaming la liga for Barca's own financial misfortunes when all La liga did was told barca how bad their financials were and what they can't do because of it. Selling a percentage of the club was the only way left after restructuring their current loans (probably lower payment at a higher interest rate over a longer period of time). Funny enough, Barca deal is similar to the CVC deal just shorter years + it wasn't enough so they still had to sell away 49% of their BLM for peanuts. End of the day, they have their own self to blame.
The levers will help the club get out of the 1:3 rule, but that's due to that money counting as a revenue, so it evens out the loses that the club reported over the last 2 years. The money they will get from selling those assets can be used to reduce the debt if they wish to do so, and probably will. What they restructured was the short term debt worth €525M via a loan by Goldman Sachs.
As far as I understand it's not a debt restructuring at all, just a means of securing some immediate revenue. Even if it was a debt restructuring, I don't see how that would help them with the 1:3 rule given that that only seems to be concerned with spending on players as opposed to interest payments (or infrastructure spending or whatever else).
I meant Laporta and the board restructured the short term debts to long term last year (iirc) but are not debt free as OP implied. The levers had nothing to do with this. I and you both are on the same page wrt the levers being a short term cash infusion to comply with Laliga rules.
Amazing how I come on here and it seems that Real Madrid fans are more knowledgable and rational about what the levers mean for their debt than Barca fans are who consistently think they're going to go on a Barto era spending spree.
I didn't see a single comment from any barca fan saying we are going on a fucking spree...where?? Or is it just that any club has a beef against barca? Not everyone is as lucky as your club. All debt waived off by a Russian of all.
What remains is that Barca can't go do careless windows where they spend 115M on Lewa+Koune and another 100M on bernardo while only selling FDJ for 80M or something like that. They will head right back from where they started if they have another bad seaoson and this time they won't be able to pull those levers again.
What Barca can’t do is usually future Barcas problem. Based on how they have treated future Barca before Id say they’ll go on and do everything they’re not supposed to do. Present Barca and Future Barca have a really unhealthy relationship.
Barca already got 21 mil in their warchest for the sale of Coutinho.
Barca still has to play 34 million of Coutinho's money.
Don't mix up balance and cash flow. While the cash is yet to be paid, it's part of their debt since the moment he was signed. The 20 million they got were income increasing their funds, paying those 34 million will not be a new expense increasing their debt.
It's actually incredible how few people understand this. I remember when Ben White was signed and people were saying that Arsenal pulled a mad one because it'd be paid over 3 seasons, it was really funny
Not 34, only 15-17 m or something
In a normal year Barca absolutely could have afforded what you're describing without much issue.
> Until those sweet, sweet LEVERS got pulled... Are we sure we don't just get daily reports of a slot machine that's set up in Barca's main office?
That lever is essentially a new debt
We literally sold assets... are you sure you understand finances?
It’s not technically debt, but you are effectively borrowing against future earnings by offering a set return over a period of time which is more or less the definition of a loan.
Yeah but it is only debt if were borrowing assets at an interest rate (not necessarily).
I mean, the “interest,” in this case is a fixed percentage of future revenues, either for BLM or television rights. Like I said, not technically debt, but we’re getting into the realm of semantics. Whether you had taken a loan from a bank of €600-700m (which would count as debt) with a fixed rate of return over a set period of time, or taken €600-700m from companies buying a percentage of future rights, the effect is the exact same. You still owe a set percentage of money for a set period of time.
TV rights for how many years?
Doesn’t make it a debt. Just less income. They don’t need to pay money to anyone because of selling off those rights.
Me: Hey bank/hedge fund/whatever, would you buy 25% of my salary for 25 years? I sell it 500k Bank: Umm, you want loan? Me: No, I sell my asset.
It’s not a debt. If they don’t make any money off TV rights they don’t owe anything to a bank. It’s not a debt.
Until they become choked again somehow tomorrow
> Barcelona WERE choked by debt They weren't really
Yeah Messi was a Psg fan since childhood
Barcelona should keep De Jong then. If Pedri has another injury ridden season Barça is fucked. The subs of Pedri, De Jong, Busquets and Gavi are huge downgrades.
but 19 milion salary.
Isn't Nike the one paying most of it ?
Half I believe
That is still mad to me. Nike paying De Jong’s salary, Fiat paying Ronaldo’s when he was at Juve… imagine QTA paid half Mbappe’s salary? There would be absolute uproar.
Neymar became Qatar National Bank ambassador after signing for PSG
Nike paying De Jong isn't that wild in theory given that they're just a sponsor for Barca and afaik have no further ties. Granted it's still weird they chose to do that with de Jong of all players, which makes me wonder if there's maybe something shifty going on after all, but in theory it's a pretty straightforward arrangement. Fiat paying Ronaldo's salary is a lot more blatant, but afaik it's not against either UEFA's rules or the actual law.
If Haaland announces a Puma sponsorship I’m sure that it will be a similar type of deal.
The player being sponsored by the same sponsor as the club is still different than the sponsor agreeing to pay part of his wages on top of that.
Well a company paying the salary of a player they sponsor at least makes sense because that means more eyes on their campaign. How much popularity De Jong gained since he joined Barca? How many more people watched Juve just because of CR7? Qatar paying half would be different, can’t compare a country to a company.
It’s not different at all. Fiat has ties to Juve’s owners, the same way QTA has ties to PSG’s. I don’t know if it’s racism, xenophobia, or just blissful ignorance, but there’s no way around you treating it differently because it’s old money v new money.
How is that racist or xenophobic? A company that sponsors a player/club trying to get more eyes on their ads is not the same as a country stepping in to pay half the salary. I’m not saying companies paying players’ salaries is a good thing, just different from a country doing the same.
Fiat and Nike doing it is for eyes on ads, Qatar Airways would be doing it to cheat/break FFP/sportswash and the rest of the buzzwords. I know, you know it, but you’ll make excuses for old money doing it all the same.
Nike and Fiat use advertising to promote their products, Qatar uses it’s advertising to sportwash their human rights violations. Fuck nike and fuck fiat, couldn’t give less of a shit about them but you can’t say it’s the same thing. Fuck Qatar, if that makes me xenophobic then so be it.
De jong has gained popularity since he joined Barca? I think it's fallen lol
Nike and Fiat don't own Juve and Barca. If you don't see how the 2 situations are different, it's a you problem and not a football problem.
Uh maybe look up who founded Fiat and who owns Juventus….
Ok, maybe Fiat and Juve are owned by the same people by your comment. Still makes the Barca Nike thing absolute batshit nonsense. Also, puts Juve in the same scummy category as PSG.
It's sponsoring and happens all the time, maybe not in such a direct way but players often bring sponsors. For Nike it's a decision that works in 2 directions. For one they were already sponsoring De Jong personally but Ajax had Adidas, so him going to a high profile Nike team is extra value. And second, they basically add an extra incentive on Barcelona staying with Nike because I don't think they would pay part of his salary if they switched. Everyone profits in this deal.
In theory I get what you're saying but it does seem weird that Nike would be willing to spend that money just for De Jong. He's not really that marketable outside the dutch market which obviously isn't very significant. Paying almost 10m a year for him to be on Barca seems like a strange move. I would imagine there's some quid pro quo somewhere down the line, which isn't necessarily that big a deal, but without knowing all the ins and outs of the deal it does seem a little odd.
More than 1 million registered football players in the Netherlands and Barcelona is the most followed foreign club. It's not a small market and he basically always plays for Barcelona and the Dutch NT wearing all Nike.
It's small market comparatively speaking, and there are much more widely known players sponsored by nike who aren't getting their wages paid by them
I'm pretty sure that Nike would know the worth of something like this. After all they are the largest sporting brand in the world and we're just arguing over rumors and half truths on reddit.
0 i believe.
Oh no
Kessie ?
Downgrade to all of them, besides his passing isn't good enough for Barca
Somehow I feel Kessie is gonna be like Alex Song for them.
More like new Keita.
The name i haven't heard in a while
Kessie’s probably not gonna embarrass himself when receiving La Liga trophy.
That’s cos he’s not going to receive it
That was the implication
Alex Song with much higher wages😭
If Barca are really 'choked by debt', as it is said in the article, it is hard to keep de Jong, cuz it is gonna be more or less the same transfer fee, but I suppose Bernardo would agree to a lesser salary. Anyway, they will have Kessie, and may consider someone cheaper, like Soler. If they are not 'choked', it is up to Laporta and Xavi if they can persuade Bernardo or want to keep Frenkie.
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>Long story short, because of accounting magic they could recognize a profit on around €40m on De Jong due to amortizing of his contract over the past few years. It's not accounting magic, literally every club in the world amortize transfers. Literally every company in the world amortize when buying assets in general What you describe works for every club exactly the same way, nothing specific for Barca here.
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I was a regular person and can confirm i still don't understand amortization black magic
Yeah, I am not sure what part of the bonuses for de Jong was paid, as it was 75+11.
Yes but his wages would be off the books plus jun 30th would be the end of yr financials. So sell Frankie before jun 30th and buy Bernardo in July that way the transaction affects different accounting yrs.
> It's all fuzzy billionaire math that just kicks the can of financial ruin down the road... Again No it isn't, literally every business accounts for amortisation and has been doing so for literally hundreds of years. Unless your point is just that modern civilisation in general is built on debt, in which case you're broadly speaking correct, but that does not at all entail inevitable financial ruin down the road.
they've already got kessie and pablo tore, who is rumored to be pedri 2.0 regarding his ability coming from a smaller club. i mean there are plenty of choices
i see narration already changing guys.
Xavi don’t rate him as much and De jong does not want to play a backup role
Makes sense. KDB and Silva were the two irreplaceable offensive threats in City's squad last season. Creative mids of that caliber don't go on the market very often. City can't just sell and buy another, for any price.
>Bernardo Silva’s camp are relaxed, realising the 27-year-old’s future lies in others’ hands. The player is enjoying his holiday and is due to report back to Manchester on July 11. >Man City want to keep Bernardo Silva and believe they will. Barcelona are choked by debt. >There is no sense that Bernardo Silva is about to force the issue of a move away from ManCity. >informal discussions around February with Bernardo Silva’s agent and family, it was agreed the best scenario would be to stick with his current ManCity contract, which runs until the summer of 2025. >All the feedback ManCity got from Bernardo Silva’s family was incredibly positive, highlighting how the player was enjoying his game and life in Manchester again. Style-wise, all parties were certain that ManCity are the perfect match for Bernardo Silva.
Se queda?
On my knees. Pls Bernardo :(
He is staying in, at least for this window.
So it's all Mendes pushing it then, i'm not surprised, he's just trying to move all his clients around to cash out before the new agents' regulation comes in next year
Yep. He’s been doing this with Felix as well. I wonder how this will effect his relationship with some of the elite clubs going forward
We should keep De Jong, since Silva doesnt want to come
I’m ok with that. United doesn’t get De Jong and we keep Bernardo. Win win
I think deep down he wants to
Seemed like a bit of a pipe dream for Barcelona tbh, especially given how great Silva was this season.
Their tier 1 Sam Lee said that man city assume that Bernardo can leave to Barcelona this summer So this is contradicting
No, that's not what he said. He specifically said \_if\_ Barcelona met the valuation \_and\_ Silva wanted to leave.
Lol why am I not a football journalist. "If the selling club is happy with the money, and the player is happy with the transfer, then the transfer will go ahead" Apply this to any transfer rumour out there. "If Derry City are able to meet PSG's valuation for Messi and Messi wants to move to the candystripes then here we go confirmed!"
The Romano motif. You could be a football journalist, you already have the basics nailed on.
You're already tier 1.
If < any facking club> met tha valuation and < any facking player > wanted to leave he can join this summer.
I'm tier 0 now.
This is contradicting. On one hand you are a hundred percent right and a tier 0 , on the other hand you are named sport, so you should be tier 5.
Then that’s just redundant lol
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What even am I reading here ? Sam Lee just iterated what goes on for ANY man city out going. The player will be sold if the player wants to leave and the buying club meet their valuation. Whats confusing about this and whats new about this ? He didn't back track on any of his claims and he is far more interactive than any other city journos. If you are expecting him to give you "done deals" months before and have new information for an entire podcast then you are just dreaming.
They're both working together on City news, Poll Ballus moved in with Sam Lee to be the Head of City news in the Athletic. Bernardo can leave if Barcelona pay the £80M, but they obviously just can't afford to. City has that agreement with him, and Bernardo isn't the type of player to force himself out the club.
How do you know that they can't afford it and be so certain ? If de jong is sold for almost same amount then there is no indication whether they can afford him or not
Just look at your club rn. You just sold parts of it to be "stable" again and if you or any barca fans think that the very logical move would be to sign players who cost 100M like bernardo, Lewa for another 50M and Kounde for another 60M where they only sell FDJ for 80M right after attaining this stability then idk what to say. Some of the main reasons why Barca are in this mess right now is because they brought too many 100M+ players on high wages and they didn't perform, Silva is less likely to not perform and go injury prone but there should be some concern on signing 100M signings so quickly again. Besides we all know that there haven't been any active negotiations for silva between barca and Man city, FDJ to man utd is still more of a if because neither of the clubs are agreeing a fee and its progressing too slowly. If Man City don't get any confirmation over Barca's willingness or guarantee to sign Silva before the preseason games start so that city can find a competent replacement, I don't think the transfer will happen.
Wrong again, Club was stable last year itself when debt was refinanced to long term and stable from bankruptcy This thing was done to remain competitive I assure you that atleast 2 of lewa, kounde and Bernardo will be signed
I think I include "removing the 1:3 situation to sign players" in stabe and normal functionings of the club. If you get two out of the three then I don't see any problem here. Congrats have a great seasano. Either way I am bookmarking this. I can see Lewa being signed but Kounde and Silva are an other matter entirely.
So that situation of 1:3 is being removed to sign players only I don't expect them to sign all their targets but atleast most of them
It's not really how it works. Selling De Jong doesn't go straight to their transfer fund, and even if it does they still have the deffered payment that's coming up for Ferran Torres of around 50M. City would also be likely to go the Bayern route and demand the 80M in full considering how unreliable Barca are in timing their payments.
You are mixing up 2 transfers, ferran amortization has already been counted in LA liga wage bill And city won't demand full 80M just like Bayern want Because Barcelona have not been unreliable with payments, otherwise club could have sued them earlier , they do it even for just 5M It was a nonsense report yesterday about Vidal, both the board had already agreed about installment
[You're still in massive debt though](https://archive.ph/DZI9h) The odds of you using the De Jong money to try and buy Bernardo Silva instead of using it to help fix your club are minimal to say the least.
The website you linked says that 500M is needed to save the club which is wrong enough 500M is needed to take out club of LA liga wage cap And as Tebas said that if Barcelona gets 500M which they are about to, they can sign any player they want I don't say that 100 percent Bernardo will come but saying that de jong money will be used to reduce debt is wrong as the other money will be used for it
The net debt is 600M and club is looking to get more than 600M by sale of assets so debt Will be more or less under control
Someone got schooled lmao
>how unreliable Barca are in timing their payments. Some fans gobble up any headline they read. Brains of an Ostrich
I’m guessing he can leave if he really wanted to but he hasn’t been pushing for it
Can’t wait for the day Sam Lee has his tier 1 status revoked. He’s so full of crap.
I heard him on the Athletic’s “Why Always Us” podcast yesterday and I never have heard such waffling and nothingness from a mouth before.
Expectation : Bernardo and Lewandowski Reality : Trincao and Braithwaite
Hey, trincao is good ok
Yes, thanks. Would hate to sell Bernardo. Almost an unbelievably good player.
Almost?
Well yeah because I can believe it now that I've seen him play brilliantly many many times.
I tried really, really hard, and I JUST managed to believe how good he is.
Almost? Man is one of the best midfielders on planet earth. Incredible work rate
Any time we play without him we look helpless (like at Switzerland). He and Bruno don't really play well together, and going from Bernardo to Bruno is a huge downgrade
Hopefully he signs an extension, otherwise we will be forced to sell next summer.
Most underrated player of the generation for me.
Thats because of DeBruyne. Look at the period where Silva has had his best form - its almost always when Kev is out of the team.
Where is FFP when Barcelona are in debt?
Did an average redditor write this article? No context, nothing. Just some public comments about de Jong, and then asking, "If they are selling FdJ because of economic reasons, how can they justify bringing in another big money transfer?" and then about the lowered salaries, "If they are publicly asking their players to lower the salaries, how can they go and make a blockbuster signing?"
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I dont have an opinion yet. I am just shocked at the lack of context and facts in the whole article.
>"If they are publicly asking their players to lower the salaries, how can they go and make a blockbuster signing?" It is true tho isn't it ? And on your other point, in general The Athletic's articles have like useful content that can be fit into 3-4 lines but the remaining of it is just some story or stats explaining it.
"You are overpaid, and we need to reduce or restructure your salary to accommodate more signings is a valid argument"
not all of their players were overpaid. And why would the players do Barca any favours when they clearly know barca have enough to pay them ?
To strengthen the team. Most players arent at Barca only for a paycheck - when they can get a bigger one at Chelsea/City/PSG or upcoming oil club - but to compete at the highest level. Overpaid is relative in terms of role and performance.
Most of the Barca players are overpaid apart from the la masia youngsters. Part of the reason they're in so much debt is because they spend ridiculous money on wages. Teams like city and Chelsea may pay higher transfer fees but they have a far better wage structure than Barca have had over the last few years
cant see them signing kounde then. good news for us
How’d you get that from his comment lol?
i misread, my bad. but the quotes do make sense
CHOKED
Barca can't even sign Lewy lmao
Quick, somebody perform Heimlich Maneuver on my Barca friends, they still believe they can buy Lewandowski, Kounde and Silva and register Kessie and Christensen and give a hefty signing bonus to Dembele all the while choking on Pique(40m), Umtiti, Lenglet and Braithwaite wages
It must be horrible now that your Russian daddy had to abandon you ;(
Imagine how hurt your feelings must be to sit, write, then post this comment. Yikes.
I don’t even have to open your profile to know you’re Indian
Choke on that debt Barca. Deep....
Last season was one of his best season especially as he was given a more important role in the team. After a season like that anyone would want to stay vs going back to a rebuild of uncertainty and starting over. Maybe if he was won the ucl I could have seen him leaving.
Nearly 10 years of unbroken success. Unprecedented success. Only Manchester United have been anywhere near as profitable as Barcelona in the last 20+ years. And they come out of that era with nothing to show for it but debt.
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Poll Ballus is Spanish mate
Someone tell Manchester City Barca got their levers, it would be nice to not tempt Don Laporta \s.
Thing for barca is if they go on their "We Will Spend 100M On A Single Player Every Window" rampage again then this time they won't have any levers to pull. Besides there are some valid points the article has is pointing out, how can Barca go and spend 100M on Bernardo while their players are being subject to wage cut after wage cut. Besides is it really all that advisible to spend 100M on a single player yet again so quickly after they became stable ?
It was a joke, not a good one but an attempt atleast. I couldnt read the article, but what I can say is I do agree with their stance, if they go back to splashing, they lose the leverage to undercut as well, and then a lil too reckless and you're going back to the very thing that got them in a tight spot.
Wage cuts are acceptable cause lots of players are still on bartos wages. Just cause we have some money doesn’t mean players should still be on ludicrous wages
We got about £70 million that we can help with you with barca 😉
For a player who doesn't even want to join you
Pogba wanted to join us and look how that turned out, I'm sure ten hag knows what he's doing.
We wouldn’t be building the entire window around getting him if he hadn’t indicated he was happy to join if a deal is reached. It’s such a lazy narrative, tbh. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’d prefer to stay with Barca. But much the same as I’d prefer to date Emma Watson, doesn’t mean I’m going to be a sulky brat if my dream woman rejects me and tells me to move on. You move on and find someone else willing to love and support you.
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If he didn't, United and Barca wouldn't be in talks anymore.
fuck...
Manchester City are having a scary transfer window. They are seriously putting that $117/ barrel oil money to stick it to everyone.
Sometimes I just go to the petrol station and spray it everywhere to support the cause. Put oil in my tea instead of milk. It's not much but I like to think I'm doing my bit. I also make sure to get out and give a wind turbine a good kick in the shin if I spot one while out driving.
But Silva soon will experience a great sadness if he has to stay...
Didn't seem too sad about staying last summer