FC Barcelona was the star of yesterday's presentation of LaLiga's financial control, in which the teams' salary caps for the 2023-2024 season were made public. The Blaugrana entity has had a record drop, of 400 million, and this season its salary limit is 270. This amount is what LaLiga allows it to spend to form the squad this year and is born from a calculation by the employer between the balance of income and expenses for each season. The new figure (270 million) is a long way from the 656 that could be spent in September of last year and is explained, among other factors, by the difficulties of the Blaugrana entity in generating recurring income. In the table made public yesterday by LaLiga, Real Madrid remains first after having increased this amount by almost 50 million, up to 727, and Atlético de Madrid is second (296).
So, LaLiga has imposed a limit on Barça of 270 million, while the club currently has to deal with a wage bill of 405, which means that it is exceeded by 135 million. Over the course of the last summer, the organization has done its homework and managed to reduce the expenditure on wages by 162 million, from 567 to 405 million, a figure far removed from the 700 of three seasons ago and which is already in line with the current economic reality of the club.
The problems to generate income and not the salary mass, which is no longer alarming, is what has caused an excess of expenditure that the board has tried to minimize in order to be able to register all the players in this market. In particular, according to Javier Tebas, president of LaLiga, the club managed to increase by 55 million this limit which is already very low thanks to the departures of Ansu Fati, Abde, Dest, Lenglet, Kessié, Dembélé and Umtiti.
However, all these exits were not enough and the club had to sell a percentage of Barça Studios worth 60 million to the German fund Libero Football Finance. Finally, the delay in payments forced Joan Laporta and the club's treasurer, Ferran Olivé, to present a guarantee to resolve the difference between the limit and the wage bill. All this effort has allowed the registration of all the players from the first squad, of which the last were Iñigo Martínez, Cancelo and João Félix.
The president of LaLiga was sympathetic to the Blaugrana club and assured that he had made "a very great effort in his salary mass" to place it in the current 405, not counting the rest of the sections, which entail an expenditure of 90 million "Barcelona, just as we said at the time that it had not done its homework and we resumed it, has made a very large decrease in its wage bill. The effort must be recognized", declared Tebas, who also recalled that "depending on the cases, there are internal evaluations that the League adapts in some contracts", as in the case of João Felix, transferred by Atlético de Madrid to cool team
"We value this contract for much more, despite the fact that Barcelona can pay him quite a bit less money than we valued. What it costs Barcelona in their squad limit is much more", he stated.
Barça has managed to do its homework despite the fact that, as it is overmatched, it cannot take advantage of the 1-1 rule (with the departure of a player, as much salary mass is released as is allowed to be spent on new registrations), for increase your limit. The figures provided by the employer's report also reveal a reduction in the salary limit of all Primera teams of more than 500 million, from 3,052 last year to the current 2,556. Barcelona represents 80% of this reduction. However, Tebas announced that there were a total of 11 teams passed, so the real figure for the cost of squads is 2,850 million, much of it due to Barça.
In the short term, Barça could have problems registering in the January market. In fact, Deco, Barça's new sporting director, already left up in the air last Monday the registration of Vitor Roque in January. "We have to assess whether we can take it to January or not, but not doing it earlier was a matter of negotiations", said the Brazilian leader. Everything points to some operation that brings extra income to be able to register.
Since Joan Laporta became president of Barça in 2021, the club has cut the wages of Messi, Griezmann, Piqué, Busquets, Jordi Alba, Dembélé, Ansu Fati, Kessié, Lenglet, Abde, Dest, Braithwaite and Umtiti , and despite this he continues to exceed his salary limit. This means that the work has been very important to try to clean up the club, and that it is getting closer and closer to achieving it, but also that there is still a lot to do to return to the path of economic growth.
