The reality of the fair play It’s so raw that there are voices in the Barça sports area who see it as “absurd” to feed illusions with new signings because right now there is no guaranteed margin to be able to register them. Aware of this difficulty, Laporta has in recent days cooled the options of Haaland or Mbappé. Internally, however, the concern also applies to Kessié and Christensen, with whom there is already an agreement for them to sign free transfer and not yet a 100% defined formula to sign them up for competitions. Both will receive a fairly high entry salary (with the signing bonus prorated), but they will not be able to play until Barça have achieved enough fair play. The same will happen with Azpilicueta, another Chelsea defender with whom there is a verbal understanding waiting to be able to break away from the London club, or with the rest of the moves that the sports management wants to close for the 2022 season / 2023. The problem is not the liquidity to pay transfers, as shown by the recent acquisition of Ferran Torres, but the margin to adjust to the limits set by the League to be able to process highs. In fact, Umtiti needed to be renewed until 2026 for Valencian to be registered.
A few weeks ago, Barça wanted the agreement with the CVC investment fund, worth between 270 and 300 million, to give it carte blanche to operate without restrictions in the summer market. But the employer led by Javier Tebas has curbed these intentions and has set at around 50 million the figure that the Barça club will be able to dedicate in terms of fair play, in line with the percentage charged by the other teams that have hosted LaLiga Impulso. Hence the moderation in the speech on Haaland, the signing of which would eat up the entire capital injection and still require additional gestures. The current scenario forces the club to cool expectations and remove the calculator to supplement CVC with savings that allow to register the agreed contracts, those that are still to be agreed and the renewed contracts of Araujo and Gavi, which will greatly increase their value. “At the moment we can only use 25% of what we generate. If we generate 10, then we will use 2.5”, they illustrate from the Camp Nou in relation to the 1/4 rule. The percentage rises to 50% for large salaries.
Hidden blows to avoid traumatic sales
The situation, therefore, puts the focus on the outflows of players that can generate capital gains and a compromised salary savings. Coutinho, revalued in the Premier League, is the clearest option in this regard, as Barça devalued its value and hopes to receive a transfer from Aston Villa that would serve to close a profit and stop paying a check until 2023. With Griezmann, the second season of transfer to Atletico Madrid will only affect salary, as the purchase option is not mandatory this summer. If Barça want to make more money with sales, the solution would not be to get rid of Frenkie de Jong, who would only leave a capital gain if an offer of more than 60 million arrived, the figure pending amortization. With Memphis or Araujo, if they don’t renew, a transfer would be profitable, but the offer would not be very high because they only have one year left on their contract. On the other hand, the end-of-contract departures of Dembélé and Sergi Roberto would not mean any savings in fair play, as there is no amount planned for the 2022/2023 academic year for these players. All this leads Barça to a balance that may have hidden blows, such as a renewal to replace Busquets’ deferred salary, with a contract until 2023, or some resignation from Piqué, which ends in 2024. Between both players, Barça has a debt for meet from 1 July more than 100 million euros gross.
