FC Barcelona’s Financial Crisis: Explained

FC Barcelona’s Financial Crisis: Explained

 

By Jim James

 

It’s no shock to the current world of football: Barcelona are in a mess. Dud signings, brain dead moves by he-who-shall-not-be-named, and royal choke jobs in recent seasons to miss out on crucial prize money. It’s all capped by a debt of around 1.5 billion euros and a battering by La Liga’s salary cap.

 

However, it boggles the mind that in the midst of this crisis, Barcelona sign Ferran Torres. An early 20s, in form Spanish winger who has 33 Spain caps already for 55 million euros. Today I’ll explain why a move like that is 100% doable for Barça, as well as a further analysis on what they can and can’t do with their debt. Let’s begin.

 

The Downfall

 

To really start at the core, we need to rewind our minds to the summer of 2017, when one Nasser Al-Khelaifi decides to do something that will define his club for the next half decade if not more at the expense of Barca; sign Neymar. He activates his 222 million release clause, a record shattering deal that firmly ushers in a new era of spending in the game, and the transfer that I would say had the biggest effect on the game as any transfer in history, and what I point to as the main cause of Barca’s decline. 

 

After that transfer, Barca start panic buying, signing a young Ousmane Dembele for the region of 110-120 million after failing to buy Philippe Coutinho in the summer. Even though Dembele was mildly disappointing, if Barca had left it there with just MSD, waiting for Dembele to develop and just going with those 3 up top, because they were doing well. They were still undefeated in La Liga to that point, and they needed no more attacking reinforcements. I still believe if they had just been patient, Dembele would had exercied his demons around 2019 and would be a great player today. However, in a move where I’m conviced they forgot about La Masia and patience, they finally got Coutinho for ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY TWO MILLION. Then what do they do? They play him out of position. You would have thought that after the first couple of disappointing performances, they would have picked up a clue, but nope. They kept throwing the same thing to the wall hoping that it would stick, but it never did. 

 

The sad part is that we could have spent the 142 million on defenders that could have stopped Kostas Manolas from scoring in the Roma game, costing us a lot of prize money we would have had. Another sad part is that with the newfound pit of cash, Liverpool got a super team. Maybe it was luck, maybe they were geniuses, but every player they signed would go up 2 or 3 levels in the Liverpool squad. Also, the money we gave Liverpool would end up costing us the Champions League a season later.

 

At this point, we had already spent the entire pot of money we got from the Neymar signing, but did we stop signing? Noooo. No we didn’t. Usually remembered are the 3 flops of Dembele, Coutinho, and Griezmann, but there was a fourth. He comes by the name of Malcom. We spent 50 million on him. Hey, you can’t flush money down the toilet, but Barca came as close as they could to it there.  However, this was actually an alright window for us, we signed some gems, like Arthur and Lenglet. We also signed Arturo Vidal from Bayern, a player who played his hardest every appearance.

 

This was also a good season. We won La Liga by a ways, and we were quite successful in the Champions League and Copa. HOWEVER, in the Copa Del Rey final we lost to Valencia in the final, and in the Champions League there was the legendary Corner taken quickly Origi moment where I almost come to tears still when I think about it. Then I think about Juventus in the Champions League and that makes me feel better. 

 

So again, we got 222 million from the Neymar sale but we had spent over 300 million on replacements so far. There was also a kid called Ansu Fati coming through the academy who looked like a future talent. We also still had 2 of the best attackers in the history of sport. I would think those 3 facts would maybe turn Barca off from signing another expensive attacker. Again, the answer is no. This time it’s Antoine Griezmann, who just had the season of his life at Atlético Madrid and had a great 2018 World Cup, but was falling out of favor with the fans. Let’s see how he did.

 

He didn’t score on his debut but that’s ok, not everyone does, he’s done well in a 5-2 win vs Betis, wait, what? He’s not scoring. Why isn’t he scoring? 

 

This was a tune at this point I was all too frustratingly familiar with. It has came in the form of Dembele, Coutinho and Malcom before him, and now Griezmann has contracted this mysterious disease that turns perfectly good attackers awful after donning the Blaugrana kit. It could be a mentality problem, it could be bad luck, but at this point, I didn’t care. 

 

It was a below average season. It was the first time we had missed out on the league title since 2017, and we had an 8-2 loss to Bayern. That was the first time I had cued in that something was wrong. Before then the Champions League was a goal, and it was a disappointment if we didn’t win it. I wish i could go back and just enjoy those season, especially the 8-2 win of our own vs Huesca in 2018. 

 

The summer of 2020 I just have tuned out of my head. I wasn’t following Barca super closely, as there was a pandemic, and it was a big summer for me personally as well. All you need to know is the Pjanic signing. One of the most brain dead signings I have ever come across, and now, one of the sketchiest. That was also the first summer that we found out Barca was in debt. Barto was as tight-lipped as Florentino Perez about this.

 

However, one of the best bits of news ever for Barca greeted us in October. Barto’s resignation. I was in a good mood firmly for a week after that.  However, it was just the beginning of the dark ages for us. 

 

2021. In February, Joan Laporta came back as president. A super move, but 2021 was definitely the worst year for Barca throughout. We had the 4-1 defeat at home to Kylian Mbappe and PSG and the botched comeback attempt. Then the 3rd place in La Liga. The happy part, though, is that Real MAdrid had a trophiless season. Yay.

 

Early August, a bombshell dropped. After a month of being a free agent and all links being to Barca, La Liga blocked the move of Barca re-signing Lionel Messi. It wasn’t compatible with the La Liga salary cap rules. He moved to PSG a few days later. We signed Sergio Aguero and Memphis Depay, but it wasn’t enough to fill the Messi void. Depay hasn’t been special, yet he has managed to become our top scorer so far. Aguero has become arguably the worst of our attacking galacticos, playing 5 games, scoring 1 goal, before getting a arrhythmia and being forced to retire.

 

That brings us to today. A stripped team with over 1 billion euros in debt, 5th in La Liga, in the Europa League, barely getting past a 3rd divison team in the Copa del Rey, and the only thing keeping me from going insane is the Erling Haaland rumors. Now we’ve got the backstory done, let’s get to the crisis itself

 

The Crisis

 

The most recent figure from Joan Laporta himself is 1.57 billion euros back in October. Now how, do you sign a 55 million player with debts like that? What about the La Liga Salary Cap? Doesn’t that stop it? Good question, hypothetical reader. 

 

The La Liga Salary Cap

 

The La Liga Salary cap is only 1 simple rule. The 70% rule, where a club’s wage bill can’t be more than 70% of their income from the previous season. It rewards careful spending, such as Real Madrid, who haven’t signed any big players since 2019 other than Eduardo Camavings – arguably, while getting many big salaries off the bill, such as Sergio Ramos’ and Raphael Varane’s. They have a spending cap of over 700 million. Meanwhile Barca’s reckless spending has cost them. They have a spending cap of only 98 million. However, “Spending cap” can be misconstrued. Barca CAN’T spend more than 98 million on player salaries, hence why they need to sell before they can register Ferran Torres, but they CAN spend big transfer fees, such as the 55 million for Ferran. La Liga have no rules on that, except FFP. However, it isn’t exactly the smartest thing you can do in this crisis.

 

The Future of FC Barcelona

 

I think what Barcelona should do is make 1 or 2 more signings, just 1 or 2, and wait a couple seasons while their youngsters develop, make some sales, minimal signings, and small ones at that, and get the Salary Cap on their side. Here’s an idea of what it may look like;

 

January 2022

In:

Ferran (55m)

Cavani (Free)

 

Out:

Coutinho (25m)

Dest (20m)

Umtiti (14m)

 

Summer 2022

 

In:

Ryan Gravenberch (30m)

Erling Haaland (75m)

Noussair Mazraoui (Free)

 

Out:

Gerard Pique (15m)

Memphis Depay (30m)

Frenkie de Jong (75m)

Sergi Busquets (20m)

Braithwaite (10m)

Sergi Roberto (15m)

Miralem Pjanic (15m)

Lenglet (15m)

 

January 2023

 

In:

Yayo (2m)

Luka Romero (4m)

Abdoulaye Kamara (3m)

 

Out:

Dembele (40m)

Jordi Alba (30m)

Eric Garcia (25m)

Mingueza (25m)

Wague (5m)

Collado (3m)

Abe (3m)

Cavani (5m)

 

Summer 2023

 

In:

Jurrien Timber (50m)

Iker Bravo (2m)

Jobe Bellingham (2m)

 

Out:

Arnau Comas (20m)

Ronald Araujo (60m)

Kays Ruiz-Atil (10m)

 

Wages In:

51.4m p/y

 

Wages Out:

128.3m p/y

 

Net:

76.9m

 

Thank you for reading this post! Until next time.