FC Barcelona and its fans received some great news this week. The gang of Pedri and Lamine Yamal will be able to return to the Camp Nou pitch on Saturday, for the La Liga match against Athletic. The Catalans will return to their arena after two and a half years of absence, with matches relocated to Montjuic. A highly anticipated return, especially since this long period at Montjuic caused the club to lose a lot of money, since the income linked to matchday were and will be infinitely superior at the Camp Nou.
This return to this brand new stadium should therefore give the club a second wind financially. But the latest statements from Javier Gomez, corporate general director of La Liga, risk dampening everyone’s mood a little. And for good reason, he confirmed that the club’s expenses are still too high compared to its income.
La Liga does not flinch
At the same time, he confirmed that Barça would not benefit from a relaxation of the rules, and that expenses made in other teams of the club, such as the women’s team or that of basketball, are also taken into account in the calculation of the financial fair play salary margin of La Liga. This means that the investments made for women’s football, for example, will limit the room for maneuver to strengthen the men’s first team. And Barça has invested a lot in its women’s team recently.
Although returning to this famous 1:1 rule – each euro collected can be reused in the transfer window – the leaders of La Liga will therefore continue to track the finances and movements of Barça, which therefore risks having new problems registering players in the future for example. Gomez still concluded that the return to Camp Nou should help a little, but Barça is not at the end of its problems with the authorities of the Spanish championship…
