Barcelona is yet to record any of their new signings, including ex-Leeds United winger Raphinha, ahead of their first Liga game on Saturday against Rayo Vallecano. According to Barca Universal, Barcelona’s board remains fairly confident in registering their new summer signings before this weekend’s La Liga opening match. That means as things stand, Barca would be unable to register all their new signings in time for their opening Liga game. Barcelona is the club that is the hardest hit by new measures due to a higher wage bill. Barcelona is not the only club in La Liga to have experienced difficulties signing players before the start of the new league campaign.
Having spent more than any club in Spain on transfers and not having managed to reduce the wage bill enough so far, this leaves Barcelona short of the threshold at which all their players are eligible to be registered in La Liga. Barcelona is still not in a position to register their summer signings; having had La Liga refuse to allow them to use club funds to overstate the values of the two asset sales, they resorted to balancing the books and bolstering their squad. Barcelona raised money by selling assets but has been struggling to cut Barcelona’s wage bill this summer nor raise cash by selling players.
Barcelona’s troubled summer has continued with the Catalan club arguing with the authorities in La Liga whether or not the financial manoeuvres they made this summer should have allowed them to register all of the players they signed. Earlier, Sports Brief reported that Barcelona’s economic woes are plaguing Barcelona, with the latter being blocked from signing new players in the summer by La Liga. According to the Spanish daily tabloid Sport, the executives at FC Barcelona have been holding regular meetings with La Liga for weeks to evaluate the situation. President Joan Laporta has always maintained FC Barcelona has done the work needed to prepare the ground for new arrivals.
Barcelona financed the transfers by selling off some of their TV rights from Club TV and 25 per cent of their Barca Studios. Still, they can formally register their summer signings only if they meet La Liga’s Financial Fair Play criteria. La Liga’s current position is that unless Barcelona triggers the fourth lever (such as selling off an additional stake in its Barca Studios holdings), selling off multiple players, or cutting multiple salaries, it cannot register all these players. The fine print of the Liga regulations also makes it in Barcelona’s best interests to get everything done all at once since clubs in violation of the cap are allowed only to spend 25% or 33% of the money collected by squad administrations to cover the transfer fees and wages of the new signings.