FC Barcelona will play their first league game of the new season in around 24 hours. As of now, Robert Lewandowski can only watch. Because the Catalans are not cleaning up their finances enough, seven footballers are currently not eligible to play. A risky game of time.
As is well known, Robert Lewandowski achieved everything this summer. The 33-year-old bickered away from FC Bayern to fulfill his dream at FC Barcelona. That his dream was actually Real Madrid, well, it doesn’t matter. He has even played for his new club and scored one goal. So everything is going really well. The striker does what is expected of him. And the club offers the striker an environment in which he can continue to win titles. Like with FC Bayern. Although heavily in debt, the Catalans adorn themselves with stars who are supposed to speed up the resurrection of the bankrupt giant.
First stop on this path: the home game against Rayo Vallecano. But before the first league kick-off of the new season on Saturday evening (9 p.m.) there is a problem. Five new stars, including Lewandowski, and two footballers who have renewed their contracts are not yet allowed to play. However, this is not just a bureaucratic act that is still being carried out. Barça still have to jump a hurdle that makes the club’s behavior on the transfer market seem absurd.
In order to sign up the new and old-new players, the Catalans have to comply with the league’s financial fair play rules. The club did not succeed until a few hours before kick-off. Although plenty of silverware had already been sold. And now the sale seems to be continuing. This Friday, the Catalans announced that they had sold Orpheus Media 24.5 percent of the shares in Barça Studios for 100 million euros in the fourth campaign of this kind.
Orpheus Media is owned by a confidant of club boss Joan Laporta and, according to “Bloomberg”, is thus securing the “unprofitable digital content area”. Little is publicly known about the investor. The originally planned sale of the shares in the club’s production company to another company had apparently failed due to legal and administrative problems.
Is this next attempt enough? For now unclear. In Spain, they fear that the traditional club will only submit the documents necessary for registration during the course of Saturday (matchday), the newspaper “Mundo Deportivo” wrote. Decisions of great importance would then possibly have to be made without sufficient time for examination. A look at the impressive balance sheet figures shows how complicated this whole situation is.
With a debt of 1.35 billion euros, the attempts at liberation (i.e. registration) only succeeded with a daring and hardly predictable anticipation of the future. The US investor Sixth Street will pay 207.5 million for ten percent of the income from the league TV rights over the next 25 years. Another 15 percent are said to bring in more than 300 million, 49.99 percent of “Barca Licensing
There’s a bittersweet punchline. Because Lionel Messi, the iconic beloved superstar, had to leave the club in the summer of 2021. Because it was too expensive. Because the financial rules could not have been fulfilled with a new contract for the Argentine. And because President Joan Laporta said at the time, as the Spox portal has now dug up again: “In order to stay within the fair play restrictions with Messi’s new contract, we would have had to agree to a contract that was basically a mortgage for the club half a century for television.” He was “not ready to pledge the rights of the club for anyone. Our institution is above everything, even the best player in the world. We will be forever grateful to him.”
As if that weren’t enough of the madness, there’s also a battle raging for Frenkie de Jong. Barça absolutely want to give up the Dutchman. He earns far too much salary. At least from the club’s point of view in 2022. The midfielder should earn up to 30 million euros. Recently, there were rumors that plans would be made with him if he voluntarily gave up half his salary. “A club that spends a fortune on new players while not paying in full those they have under contract is immoral and against the law “, he wrote.
The club shouldn’t really care. In the balancing act between bankruptcy (threatening scenario) and a rosy future (hoped-for scenario), the bosses put the existence of FC Barcelona at risk. The brand only stays en vogue if it achieves great sporting success. In terms of football for the stars, and as a product that can be marketed well. The problem with this strategy is that it has to work because there doesn’t seem to be a plan B given the debt burden.
Whether the newcomers Lewandowski, Jules Kounde, Raphinha, Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie as well as Ousmane Dembélé and Sergi Roberto, whose contracts have been renewed, can be used against Rayo Vallecano or not, that will not decide whether the Catalan all-in will succeed. However, if registration is not completed by the end of the summer transfer window, which closes in Spain on September 1, Lewandowski and Co. cannot be used at least until the winter transfer time.
