The farce is followed by the thriller: Robert Lewandowski has to worry about the start of the season for a long time, but in the end things are going well for the world footballer and his FC Barcelona. The club organizes fresh money in good time, the striker can play immediately.
That was close: Until a few hours before the first game of the season against Rayo Vallecano on Saturday (from 9 p.m. in the live ticker on ntv.de), FC Barcelona had to tremble whether star striker Robert Lewandowski would be allowed to play. The struggling club worked hard until the end to meet the league’s financial rules in order to get the Pole allowed to play. It is now clear: Lewandowski, who came from Bayern Munich after a week-long transfer posse in July, can now go on the hunt for goals for the Catalans. The Polish attacker is registered in the official portal of La Liga. The same goes for Raphinha, Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen, the other newcomers.
According to information from the Spanish newspaper Mundo Deportivo, the Catalans have also secured the right to play for new signing Raphinha, as well as for Ousmane Dembélé and Sergi Roberto, whose old contracts have been renewed. Only the case of newcomer Jules Kounde is still unclear.
The club recently sold 24.5 percent of Barça Studios, a club-owned company, for 100 million euros, paving the way for its newcomers to be able to register for the start of the season. FC Barcelona sent all relevant documents to the league for review in the morning, as the Spanish sports newspaper “Marca” wrote. Their boss Javier Tebas will have examined them with critical eyes, the 60-year-old is not suspected of bending his own rules. Last year, FC Barcelona had to let club saint Lionel Messi go because they simply couldn’t afford the world star according to league regulations.
In theory, it would have been enough for a start of the season if the eligibility to play had been granted a few minutes before the game kicked off on Saturday night at the Camp Nou. However, if registration had not taken place by the end of the summer transfer window, which closes in Spain on September 1, Lewandowski and Co. would not have been able to play, at least until the winter transfer window.
The happy ending was preceded by a week-long thriller in which the club, which owes 1.3 billion euros, pulled out all the stops to create the conditions for Lewandowski and the other newcomers to play. At a general meeting in mid-June, two proposals from Laporta for the short-term development of new sources of income were accepted with a clear majority, including the sale of media rights for the next 25 years. The sale of a 49.9 percent stake in Barça Licensing and Merchandising (BLM) was also approved, which should bring in 200 to 300 million euros. Barça hopes that a total of around 700 million euros will end up in the big club’s accounts. FC Barcelona is gradually selling its own substance and income for the future in order to save the present. A dangerous game – even if Boss Laporta recently announced: “The risk is under control. We have to save the club and have the opportunity to get new players.”
Thanks to the “Espai Barça” (“Barça Square”) project, the renovation of the Camp Nou and the entire surrounding club complex, including the Palau Blaugrana sports hall, the club wants to earn an additional 200 million euros a year in the future. The Catalans’ stadium will be called Spotify Camp Nou after signing a “strategic partnership” agreement with music streaming leader Spotify.
“As of today” Barça Lewandowski could not sign a contract because of the financial constraints, Tebas had warned at an event of the Spanish news agency Europa Press in May. “I don’t know if they (Frenkie) should sell de Jong or Pedri, but they need to generate income and sell assets.” And yet FC Barcelona went on a big shopping spree, up to 50 million euros were due for Lewandowski, right winger Raphinha was worth 58 million euros to the Catalans, and 50 million euros were transferred to Sevilla for defender Jules Koundé.
The transfer summer of FC Barcelona also surprised the competition: “It’s not just Lewy, they buy a lot of players – I don’t know how. It’s the only club in the world that has no money, but buys any player they want . It’s kind of weird, kind of crazy,” said Bayern Munich coach Julian Nagelsmann. Uli Hoeneß, the longtime maker of the record champions, also commented critically on FC Barcelona’s transfer behavior: “They are apparently financial artists who, despite the high debt burden, apparently still find a bank that gives them money to do something like that.”
A report by the portal “The Athletic” recently caused a stir and anger: According to this, the club is said to have informed its major earner de Jong, who was unwilling to change, that legal action could be taken against a contract extension for the Dutchman, through which the former Barca board of directors initially lost large parts in 2020 of the player’s salary initially saved in order to distribute them now. A construction that further restricts the financial room for maneuver in the present.
The club wants to continue to get rid of the player, a move to Manchester United already negotiated between the clubs failed in June due to de Jong’s veto. Dutch players’ union president Evgeniy Levchenko had hinted that de Jong could be a victim of blackmail. President Laporta denies that. So far, De Jong has neither wanted to change nor forego salary. That’s why fans have even mobbed him on the street.
