Barcelona are hoping to get all of their players registered for the coming season before their next clash with Levante this weekend, and it has been cited that player departures will be the decisive factor for that to happen. Talk of the €100m VIP seats lease to Forta Advisors and New Era Visionary Group, previously thought to be the deal that would get Barcelona back into their salary limit, has faded into the background.
Director of Sports Sections at Barcelona Xavi O’Callaghan gave a press conference on Monday, where he explained the state of play for all of the sports that do not come under men’s football. It was reported recently that Barcelona’s board had put up a €7m guarantee to allow the men’s senior team to register Marcus Rashford and Joan Garcia due to sports like basketball going over budget. However O’Callaghan vehemently denied that this was the case.
Budget cuts for basketball while Barcelona Femeni on the rise
O’Callaghan told SER Catalunya that the result of the €7m hole in the club’s finances was down to the men’s football side spending extra on players that they could not register, and players remaining on youth contracts rather than senior ones. He confirmed that the Femeni side, recently forced to sell Jana Fernandez and down to just 17 players, were in budget.
Their salary budget will rise by €1m to €13.7m this year, but O’Callaghan noted that the money from English sides was pushing the prices up, and making it more difficult to retain star players. Meanwhile basketball will see its budget reduced from €31.5m to €28.7m.
Barcelona and La Liga having ‘fight’ over €100m VIP seats lease
Continuing on, O’Callaghan also addressed the famous VIP seats lease, that La Liga initially added to Barcelona’s salary limit last January. However the former handball player explained the issues Barcelona are facing for that to continue being the case.
“Fair play depends on expected revenue. If you tell LaLiga, ‘I’ll make this revenue this year,’ you haven’t made it yet; you’re saying you will. And the interpretation of revenue from VIP seats, for example, is one way for Barça and another for La Liga. And there’s a difference here, and there’s a fight here.”
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“You have to play with the revenue, and if you consider it to be what it is (including VIP seats) and La Liga doesn’t, you have a problem. That’s why the Board is also taking a risk, because if La Liga’s perception of revenue is different, you’ve already committed.”
The difference in interpretation between La Liga and Barcelona
In March, auditors Crowe removed the €100m income from Barcelona’s budgets, leaving Barcelona over their salary limit again. Barcelona are now trying to prove that the product in question is now active, and thus can be included in their accounts, but O’Callaghan seemed to confirm that La Liga already had the documentation, and it was the disagreement that accounted for the lack of green light.
Barcelona leased out the rights to 475 VIP seats at their matches for the next 30 years, theoretically at Camp Nou at the time, in exchange for €100m. Previously it has been reported that La Liga believe that, as is the case with sponsorship agreements and transfers, the income should be split over the duration of the deal, in this case leaving the annual impact on their salary limit at €3.33m rather than €100m this year.
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