Barcelona's transfer budget raised by another €800m

FT Desk

11 Sept 2022 10:05 BST
3 min read

This time last year Barcelona were losing Lionel Messi on a free transfer to PSG amid a debt of more than €1 billion. Now they have another €646 million to spend.

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Barcelona have been handed some more good news by La Liga, with the club's spending limit for the coming season raised to €656m - up €800 from the minus €144m they were capped at last season.

Barca worked hard to clear their debts this summer, activating a number of "financial levers".

Barcelona activating another lever like:pic.twitter.com/Td6EEpMdxF
— Football Transfers (@Transfersdotcom) August 11, 2022

They sold 25 per cent of their domestic TV rights to US investment firm Sixth Street for more than €500m. A 49 per cent stake in Barca Studios was sold for €200m, while they signed a long-term sponsorship deal with Spotify in March.

Although they spent more than €150m on Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde this summer, they also made €35m back on player sales such as Philippe Coutinho's to Aston Villa and Pierre-Emericak Aubameyang's to Chelsea.

Tebas: 'May not be so high next season'

"Without the [further sale of assets] it may not be so high next season," La Liga president Javier Tebas said of Barca's spending limit. "They may have to reduce their outgoings by around €200m by selling players or even more assets.

"Not at all," he responded when asked if the league had been too lenient. "The same rules are applied to all the clubs in Spain. To register Kounde, the president of Barcelona had to put up a personal guarantee. I don't think they're at risk of bankruptcy, not at all. They have a high wage bill but a lot of equity."

Real Madrid have the highest spending cap at €683m, while Atletico Madrid are able to spend the third-most at €341m. Whether they spend €40m of that on making Antoine Girezmann's loan from Barca permanent remains to be seen.