Just when it seems Barcelona have hit rock bottom the ground beneath them gives way and down they go again.
The team might be top of LaLiga but the club’s spectacular financial free-fall shows no sign of coming to an end and this week a corruption lawsuit against them dating back to before 2018 was filed.
It’s a measure of their turmoil, that right now, is not their biggest problem.
The Spanish League president Javier Tebas said in London last week that as things stand the club would not be able to sign players this summer.
The club’s president Joan Laporta continues to promise new recruits – a centre-back, right-back and forward, despite admitting there are problems.
Barcelona may currently top LaLiga but the club’s problems off the pitch are mounting up
President Joan Laporta continues to promise summer signings but the margins are wafer thin
A one-season move away from the Nou Camp while it is redeveloped will cost the club £83m
He has to keep talking up the situation as best he can but things are likely to get worse before they get better, with three more sledgehammer blows about to fall.
This summer Barcelona will lose the use of their famous stadium for at least one season.
They expect to lose their Super League battle in the European courts too.
And perhaps worst of all they could lose their best young players if selling them represents the only way to fix their finances.
The wage bill is the biggest immediate problem. It currently stands at around 655million euros [£582m].
When LaLiga tells Barcelona at the end of this season what their ‘maximum permitted squad spend’ is, ahead of the summer transfer market, the figure it gives the club is likely to be just 450m euros [£400m].
In simple terms that means – either through slashing the wage bill or massively increasing revenue – the club needs to find around 200m euros [£178m] in the next four months.
The Super League is not going to save them and the temporary stadium move is the last thing they need. So much so that they have even considered the possibility of trying to delay it for a year.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas is in no mood to let Barcelona off the hook and made clear last week that, as it stands, they won’t be able to sign anyone this summer
That lack of finance to strengthen the squad may lead to coach Xavi walking away
Real Madrid fans mock Laporta with fake Euro notes during the Copa del Rey Clasico last week
Xavi’s team are due to kick-off next season in the humble, slightly decrepit surroundings of the city’s Olympic Stadium while the Nou Camp is redeveloped.
The costs of rebuilding the Nou Camp will hurt. They have downscaled original plans and controversially chosen Turkish contractor Limak to carry out the work.
Rival Spanish constructors believe Limak’s bid was the cheapest and that they won the tender because they agreed to stringent guarantees, regarding the work not going over estimate on price or timescale, guarantees considered unrealistic by other bidders.
Funding for the new stadium should be agreed this month and it will mean doubling the club’s debt from 1.5 billion to 3 billion euros [£1.33bn to £2.66bn].
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have both been tasked by Barcelona to find the 1.5 billion euros worth of investment, to be paid back over the next 35 years.
The first team should be back in the Spotify Nou Camp by December 2024 with 70 per cent capacity. But the season they will have to spend at the 49,000 capacity Olympic Stadium will cost them 94m euros [£83.6m] of reduced match day revenue.
They have plans to try to offset some of those losses by selling off bits of the old stadium to supporters. They hope some fans will pay to have their old seats once they have been ripped out of the famous concrete arena.
Amid all the financial turmoil, Barcelona are on course to wrest the title from Real Madrid
Raphinha scores Barcelona’s winning goal against Valencia in their latest LaLiga outing
Barcelona will also have to pay around 20m euros [£17.8m] to give their temporary new home the facelift it will need to meet UEFA standards.
Before they move to the Olympic Stadium they should have a definitive ruling from the European Court, which will almost certainly decree that the Super League founders CAN be punished by UEFA for trying to start a rival competition.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has clung to the Super League life raft since taking over the club presidency two years ago believing it would lead to a bumper 600m euros [£533m] television contract, just for the club, with UEFA, currently the ‘inconvenient’ middleman, cut out of the deal.
The expected court ruling will end all realistic hopes that the breakaway project has any future.
Laporta told Sportsmail last month that he was now hoping to ‘sit around the table with UEFA’ – it’s a far cry from trying to overthrow them and a measure of how he is slowly resigning himself to the fact that this will not be Barcelona’s salvation.
No Super League and an uncomfortable temporary move from the stadium will not necessarily put the brakes on Xavi’s young but rapidly improving squad, currently sat nine points clear at the top of LaLiga.
The 99,000-capacity Spotify Nou Camp will be empty next season for rebuilding work
Barca will play their home matches at the Olympic Stadium, which has half the capacity
But if it means top players have to be sold, then he will suffer too.
Barcelona could lose sensational 18-year-old Spain midfielder Gavi on a free transfer in July if LaLiga successfully blocks their bid to take him off the apprentice’s salary he’s currently on and give him a senior professional’s contract.
LaLiga blocked them registering his new deal earlier this year but Barcelona temporarily reversed the decision on appeal to a civil court.
LaLiga are not giving up and if they win the legal wrangle Gavi will be out of contract and free to leave for riches elsewhere should he wish.
He has shown no signs of wanting to leave but how patient will he be if Barcelona are blocked from giving him a proper deal?
The 19-year-old left back Alejandro Balde, and 23-year-old centre-back and player of the season Ronald Araujo are in a similar situation.
LaLiga argue that the new contracts proposed by Barcelona for these young players will send the wage bill shooting upwards once more – well beyond the squad spend limit they will be instructed to remain within at the end of this season.
There is concern young star Gavi will seek another opportunity elsewhere in the summer
Ronald Araujo is another top performer who may have to be sacrificed to raise funds
It is Barcelona’s absolute priority now that these players are renewed. Contracts with Gavi and Araujo have been agreed, and Jorge Mendes is close to agreeing Balde’s contract but unless the league let Barcelona register the new contracts then agreement between club and players are meaningless.
So what can they do to create the financial wriggle room that will enable them to get the new contracts over the line and maybe bring in some free transfers?
If the ground move and the Super League setback make it impossible to significantly increase revenue then they have to cut the wage bill.
Gerard Pique and Antoine Griezmann leaving the club will take 90m euros [£80m] off of next season’s salary bill – both had contracts into next year. But that still leaves 110m euros [£97.8m] to find and even then they have to agree with LaLiga on the calculation of their total squad spend.
LaLiga come up with a maximum squad spend number after each club submits documentation to them outlining what their costs will be for the coming season.
LaLiga believe that other sports teams at Barcelona are valid contributions to overall squad costs and that Barca need to include them in the numbers they provide.
This could inflate the final figure they submit to LaLiga by around 80m euros [£71m] – and so bring their permitted squad spend down.
Barcelona had budgeted for a run to the Champions League quarter-finals but they dropped into the Europa League and then lost to Manchester United
Frenkie de Jong turned down Man United last summer but he may be forced out this time
‘We have to try ensure that the league recognises our effort and is flexible with us,’ said Director of Football Mateu Alemany last month.
Both he and Laporta have said there will be no forced sales, but one player is clearly being pushed towards the exit – Ansu Fati.
The player, represented by Mendes, inherited the No 10 shirt from Lionel Messi. He had earned that privilege debuting before turning 17 and becoming they youngest player ever to score for the club in LaLiga.
Injuries have slowed him down and Barcelona’s oft-quoted 100m euros [£88.9m] valuation now looks grossly inflated despite him still being only 20. But such is the club’s situation a much lower offer could be accepted.
Barcelona would consider offers closer to 40m euros [£35.6m], and a loan deal also might not be out of the question. If Joao Felix can go to Chelsea for half a season for 6m then asking a club to pay 12m to take Fati is a serious option.
Monetising Fati will not be enough though. More senior players will be available at the right price. Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie both arrived on a free last summer and have been successes. Both could be sold.
Raphinha arrived from Leeds last summer and he’s had a good first campaign. But if Barcelona could recoup the £55m they spent on him then they will.
This is because Moroccan winger Abde Ezzalzouli is due to return from what is proving to be a hugely successful loan spell at Osasuna and would, in effect, be a free replacement.
Ansu Fati is one player Barcelona are pushing towards the exit door to raise some funds
Raphinha has been performing well but would be an obvious transfer list candidate
Sergio Busquets is out of contract in the summer and about to be offered a new deal that, if he accepts, would take him from being one of the top-earners on 18m euros [£16m] net, to one of the lowest on closer to 2.5m euros.
No one would be surprised if he said no to that and yes to a move to the MLS to join Lionel Messi in Miami (should he sign for the American side).
Frenkie de Jong is also on around 18m euros net and for that reason he remains a player that Barcelona would, albeit reluctantly, allow to leave if the buyer is prepared to match the 75m euros [£66m] Barcelona paid for him, and he accepts the move – something he did not do last summer when Manchester United agreed terms with Barca.
Barcelona can’t sell everyone. The team has to remain competitive and if they win the league, they will feel emboldened to ask Tebas for more time to move gradually towards total solvency.
There is a feeling in Spain that when Tebas talks in England he does so with his own constant arguing for Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain to be punished for over-spending, in mind.
He feels if he talks-up how strict he is with Barcelona then it strengthens his case for UEFA to control the state-funded clubs of Europe.
Barcelona already pulled some economic levers last year but their options are dwindling
Perhaps back in Spain he will ultimately be more conciliatory with Barcelona. Although when LaLiga recently tightened the rules on so-called economic levers, it suggested no such softening.
Barcelona leased 49 per cent of future television rights, and 49 per cent of Barca Studios to investors last summer to fund 150m euros [£133m] worth of new arrivals including Robert Lewandowski.
But LaLiga has now limited to just five per cent the amount of money raised by this mortgaging of future income that can be counted as revenue. Barca can’t pull any more ‘levers’ this summer.
There is still one golden lever they could pull but it’s one they never want to have to use. They could cease to be a Sports Club owned and controlled by their 140,000 ‘socios’ or members, and become a corporation funded and run by private investors.
That would cure all their economic ills in an instant but wash away the ‘more than a club’ magic just as quickly.
Current president Joan Laporta has said it would never happen while he is president but the club has given into shirt and stadium sponsorship in recent years so some analysts believe a Bayern Munich style 49-51 per cent agreement, still in the members favour, might not be able to be ruled out forever.
Speaking this week about the likelihood that Barca will be tried for corruption after Spain’s Public Prosecutor decided to proceed with a case investigating payments made by the club over a sustained period to Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira while he was the vice-president of Spanish football’s referee’s committee, Laporta complained of a campaign against the club.
Attracting investment by moving away from their fan ownership model could be an option
‘It’s a campaign from those who want to control Barca,’ he said. ‘It’s LaLiga and CVC. They want to suffocate us economically so that we convert into a corporation.’
CVC is the investment fund that entered into a financing agreement with LaLiga in 2021 in which clubs receive low interest loans in exchange for around 11 per cent of television revenue over the next 50 years.
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao were the only top flight clubs to refuse to sign with CVC.
Laporta stands by that decision – the one that seems to have confirmed Messi’s departure. There is a feeling that had he signed LaLiga might have found a way for the club to keep the Argentinian.
Right now Laporta just wants to hang on to his coach. He spoke this week about wanting to renew the contract until 2024 that Xavi has, regardless of what trophies are won this season.
Xavi is already showing signs of fatigue though. He said this week: ‘There are many moments when it feels like it’s not worth it. Sometimes it’s very hard. Some of the worst days of my life have been while I’ve been Barça coach.’
All things considered he is doing an extraordinary job in LaLiga but early elimination from the Champions League cost the club around £18m, and elimination from the Europa League put paid to any hopes of winning the secondary competition and earning around £13m.
Winning the league in Spain is far less lucrative. But it might serve to energise Xavi for next season. And it would maintain Barcelona’s status on the pitch, as their reputation off it continues to spiral downwards.