LaLiga
Real Madrid can spend 739 million euros, while the Barça club presents a balance of -144 million after the winter market
After his four signings in the winter market, Barcelona is the only LaLiga club with a negative salary limit, while Real Madrid maintains a positive balance of 739 million euros, after not having spent a single euro during said period. The Barça club has gone from a maximum cost of the squad of 97 million in the summer market to a balance of -144 million, after having been reinforced with Ferran Torres, Aubameyang, Adama Traoré and Dani Alves, after the update carried out by LaLiga of the First and Second Division clubs at the end of the winter market and the arrival of 700 million in the coffers of the professional clubs.
In the First Division, after Real Madrid, the clubs with the highest salary margin for their players and coaches are Sevilla (199 million) and Atlético (161), compared to 61 for the current fifth-placed team, Betis. Like Barça, eight other top-flight clubs (Atlético, Real Sociedad, Betis, Villarreal, Sevilla, Alavés, Celta and Espanyol) and four Second Division (Cartagena, Alcorcón, Málaga and Ibiza) have also experienced a negative balance. .
However, no professional club has experienced such a considerable decline as the entity chaired by Joan Laporta, with 242 million less than the salary limit available in the summer market. In Second, the club with the highest salary limit is Eibar, with 30 million. A very short distance from the also leader of the category is Valladolid, with 29 million, ahead of Leganés (26).
The salary limit is the amount that each professional club can spend on players, first and second coaches and physical trainers for the first team, and also includes spending on affiliates, academy and other sections. In LaLiga Santander, the salary ceiling is 2,046,983,000 euros (in October it was 2,277,214,000), while in LaLiga SmartBank it is 252,242,000 (244,083,000 at the beginning of the season).
In a critical economic situation, Barcelona will not only be very limited by the salary cap this season, “but also the following ones”, as LaLiga’s corporate general director, Javier Gómez, warned on Monday. “To improve, you will have to have capital gains, either with CVC (the investment fund with which the club management has signed) or have benefits, selling players or other assets,” acknowledged the leader of the body chaired by Javier Tebas.
“Capital increases would be another way to rebalance, but not at Barça,” he stressed. “Barcelona’s limit is negative because its losses are greater than the differences between income and structural expenses. That is to say, that it has accumulated too many losses over time”, underlined Javier Gómez, who recalled that Barça has been able to strengthen itself in winter with four footballers “due to savings with cases such as Agüero, Umtiti or Coutinho”, but that to sign Erling Haaland, “he would have to reduce his spending or have benefits, because there is no other way out.”
CVC and Spotify
To try to solve its crisis, Barcelona is already approaching CVC, although until now it was aligned with Real Madrid and Athletic and was reluctant to sign with the British fund to give oxygen to its accounts. Otherwise, they will have to carry out several operations, such as the long-awaited agreement with Spotify to name the Camp Nou, or get rid of some of their best players in the summer, including Ousmane Dembélé, to comply with the rules of ‘fair play’ ‘ financial LaLiga, while Real Madrid will have no problem undertaking the long-awaited signing of Kylian Mbappé.
In the 2020-2021 season, the balance between purchases (458 million) and sales (500) of soccer players by LaLiga clubs was favorable at 42 million, while during the 2021-2022 season a deficit of 124 million was recorded , since the signings (350 million) have exceeded the transfers carried out (226).
