Barcelona finances free#

Barcelona finances free#

Also key were reducing salaries of some of its highest-paid players and signing free agents who were cheaper on the market.

Laporta said he had to reduce salaries by about 200 million euros ($227 million), increasing the focus on promoting youth players to the first team, which was the case with the likes of Pedri GonzГЎlez, Gavi PГЎez and Nico GonzГЎlez. BarcelonaвЂ™s struggles had already forced the league to cut the clubвЂ™s cap from a league-high 671 million euros ($763 million) in 2019-20 to 382 million euros ($434 million) last season. BarcelonaвЂ™s cap for 2021-22 was slashed to 97 million euros ($110 million), becoming more than seven times smaller than that of rival Real Madrid. It is proportional to roughly 70% of a clubвЂ™s revenues. Each club has a different salary cap calculated based on factors that include revenues, costs and debts. The high salaries made it difficult for Barcelona to put its squad together as Spain has strict fair-play regulations that are mostly linked to clubsвЂ™ financial health. Laporta also accused Bartomeu of paying commissions to agents that were higher than usual, sometimes reaching 30%. The players with the highest salaries included Messi, Antoine Griezmann, Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane DembГ©lГ©, who is the only one still in the squad after rejecting offers to leave in the winter transfer window. PlayersвЂ™ salaries rose 61% from 2016-17 until 2020-21 - from 471 million euros ($535 million) to 793 million euros ($901 million) - and Laporta said they would have reached 835 million euros ($949 million) - well over 100% of the clubвЂ™s revenues - if action wasnвЂ™t taken. The clubвЂ™s revenues for 2020-21 were 631 million euros ($717 million), 26% less than the 855 million euros ($972 million) from the previous year. The club - which is owned by its more than 137,000 members - had losses of 481 million euros ($547 million) and was left with a negative net worth of 451 million euros ($512 million). Some 40 million euros ($45 million) were linked to membership losses, while the impact of the pandemic was 91 million euros ($103 million). The clubвЂ™s debt reached a whopping 1.3 billion euros (nearly $1.5 billion), including almost 390 million euros ($443 million) related to player salaries and more than 670 million euros ($761 million) owed to banks.

Laporta recently handed prosecutors what he called evidence of the irregularities by the former president. The spending on players surpassed the clubвЂ™s total income when new president Joan Laporta arrived last year.

The COVID-19 pandemic also affected the club, but the increasingly high salaries of the first-team squad created most of the problems. Most of the blame for BarcelonaвЂ™s financial struggles has been linked to former president Josep Bartomeu, who resigned in 2020 - denying wrongdoing - amid accusations of irregularities in his administration and a fallout with Messi. Here is a look at how BarcelonaвЂ™s financial struggles began and what the club has been doing to try to recover and regain its status as a top contender in Europe.

The Catalan clubвЂ™s quick demise has been directly related to its recent financial struggles, which ultimately resulted in the loss of Lionel Messi to Paris Saint-Germain last summer. It had made it to the knockout stage of the Champions League every time since then, winning the competition five times. It debuts in the Europa League against Napoli on Thursday, 18 years after it last appeared in the lower-tier UEFA Cup. Barcelona is back in the second tier of European soccer after nearly two decades contending among the elite in the Champions League, a blow to its prestige and a further hit to its dire financial situation.