Barça is once again facing a summer transfer market conditioned by its financial situation. The Azulgrana team is unable to get out of the hole and is surviving on a war economy in terms of salary caps and financial fair play. Last January, FC Barcelona had to resort to a precautionary measure from the CSD in order to register the signings of Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor, and the situation ahead of this summer’s transfer window looks set to be complicated once again, although the club is conveying a message of hope.
The problem with the VIP boxes
Barcelona closed the sale of VIP boxes at the new Camp Nou worth €100 million at the end of December, although it was made official in mid-January. With this income, Barça was able to breathe a sigh of relief and regain LaLiga’s 1:1 rule so that it could sign players as normal in the January transfer window, but what is the 1:1 rule?
The 1:1 rule states that a club can spend the same amount of money on signings as it earns, whether through sales or salary savings. In other words, a club covered by the 1:1 rule can spend one euro for every euro it generates. To prevent clubs from getting into debt, LaLiga created the so-called 1:4 rule in 2021: a penalty that only allowed clubs that exceeded the limit to spend 25% of their income. That is where Barça found itself before the sale of the VIP boxes.
The problem was that the auditor Crowe Spain did not agree with the criteria of the temporary audit that validated the box operation. This company points out that the $100 million should not be counted in full this season because the asset—the new VIP seats—did not yet exist. In other words, the income from the boxes could not be accounted for in this financial year and, therefore, Barça was once again in breach of the 1:1 rule.
Now that the boxes have been completed, Barça is confident that the auditor who ultimately refused to include this income in the accounts will reverse its decision and allow it to be recorded as profit, enabling the club to return to the 1:1 rule and formalize signings this summer, such as Joan García and Luis Díaz, the two main targets for the team.
Laporta spoke about the issue a few days ago in an interview. “Fair play is set by LaLiga at the end of the season depending on budgets. We will bring in €950 million this year. Next season, the budget will exceed €1 billion. We are confident that we will be at 1:1. This makes it much easier for Deco to work,“ said the Barça president. He added that ”last season we closed with positive results and that helped us a lot. Above all, it is easier for Deco to work with 1-1 than with 1-4.”
The income Barça expects to achieve
Barça wants to return to the 1:1 rule to avoid having to make painful departures such as those of Fermín López and Ferran Torres, who have many suitors in the market. Revenue will have to come from other sources with the departures of players such as Ansu Fati, Pablo Torre, Iñaki Peña, and Pau Víctor. Their departures are a real option to bring in money and free up salary cap space. In addition, Barça has retained percentages of future sales of former players and purchase options on loan players, with which it hopes to earn around €40 million during the summer transfer window, thereby balancing its books.