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Yahoo
a day ago
- Sport
- Yahoo
Barcelona Season in Review: Hansi Flick's midas touch brings silverware
With the European season officially at an end, Football España will be reviewing each and every one of the La Liga sides and how they fared this season. Results: La Liga: 1st – 88 points Champions League: Semi-final Advertisement Copa del Rey: Winners Spanish Supercup: Winners Top Goalscorer: Robert Lewandowski – 42 Top Assister: Raphinha and Lamine Yamal – 25 Season Summary When Barcelona began the season, there were doubts about Dani Olmo, their only summer signing, and generally about Joan Laporta's second mandate. By the end of it, Olmo might remain the biggest doubt, because Hansi Flick managed to obtain the maximum out of almost everything and everyone. The season began with promise, a free-flowing attack, and a smile replaced the uniform of glum expressions at Barcelona. Major wins against Real Madrid and Bayern Munich turned optimism into genuine belief, and despite losing their way in spectacular fashion in November and December, Flick saw Barcelona come out the other side. Image viaAdvertisement In 2025, Frenkie de Jong joined Raphinha on the redemption arc, and Barcelona lost just twice on their way to three trophies in Spain, and a semi-final run in Europe. Despite repeated reports of the demise of Barcelona's high line, only an absurd goalkeeping performance and the woodwork saw Inter past the Blaugrana in the Champions League. In August, it looked as if Barcelona could be facing an era of Real Madrid dominance: Flick's side beat down that suggestion with 16 goals in four Clasicos. Verdict: A+ Maybe the plus should have been reserved for a Champions League victory, but winning La Liga was a prospect that required plenty of imagination at the start of the season. Not only did Barcelona do that, they did so in swashbuckling style, playing the best football seen in Catalonia since Luis Enrique's fearsome front three. The individual turnarounds cannot be ignored: Raphinha went from a bargaining chip to a Ballon d'Or candidate, Robert Lewandowski soared past 40 goals, Pedri went from unable to play to unplayable, and Inigo Martinez roared his defence forward with warrior abandon. Lamine Yamal was coming off a brilliant Euro 2024 campaign, but even he transformed into scarier phenomenon, whisking away big team after big team with his magical feet. Player of the Season: Raphinha An almost impossible task, that based purely contributions across the season, could probably have gone to Lamine Yamal or Pedri. Yet this was the season of Raphinha. His hunger, aggression and explosiveness typified what this Barcelona were about this year. Advertisement Time and again, Raphinha appeared, a looming monument over the football match, the Corcovado itself coming up with inspiration to down Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Benfica among others. Only an lapse, an accident, robbed him of another of those moments against Inter. Pleasant Surprise of the Season: Inigo Martinez As with the previous award, this one has other pretenders, and only his injury issues see Frenkie de Jong miss out. From the first moment though, Inigo Martinez set the tone in a young football team, and marshalled a backline that by Flick's own admission, was counter-cultural to what his ageing legs and head asked of him. Image via EFE Advertisement The 33-year-old wasn't even a certainty to be at the club this season, and by the end of the season, his absence meant goals being leaked. Behind him, first Marc-Andre ter Stegen, then the melancholy Inaki Pena, then the altogether jovial retired man helping out a mate. To his left, Alejandro Balde lacking confidence, to his right, an 18-year-old Pau Cubarsi. In front of him lay Pedri, playing deeper for the first time in three years, and Marc Casado, playing at this level for the first time. Flick's praise of Martinez was reserved for precious few. If only we could have had a bit more from: Dani Olmo Mercurial is often used as praise, but in Dani Olmo's case, it was his hindrance. There were times when Olmo produced magic that won Barcelona games, finding space in a straightjacket. Yet despite his goal against Inter, Olmo struggled to hit the right notes against Real Madrid and Italians in the closing stages. Inconsistency was aided by injury, and the feeling is that Olmo could be Barcelona's X factor, but is currently just an X factor. On the horizon, you see… Plenty of reason for more optimism. Whether they win La Liga next season or not is a different conversation, but you can almost guarantee they will challenge. Barcelona will be one of the favourites for the Champions League too, and if they can keep their key players fit, there is no reason to think the Blaugrana cannot compete with anyone, and in every competition. Image via FC Barcelona Another reason for relief is the Club World Cup. Barcelona will have a rare full preseason this summer, and more than a month off, commodities that most managers cannot buy. The good news is that Barcelona managed all this with some obvious holes in their squad, and clear room for improvement. Expectation next year will be one weight they did not have to carry around this time round though.
New York Times
a day ago
- Business
- New York Times
Barcelona and La Liga's salary limit: Can they afford Nico Williams?
A version of his article was first published on June 5. It has been updated to reflect Barcelona's €60m pursuit of Nico Williams. Barcelona's 2024-25 campaign was thrilling on the pitch — but there were equally dramatic twists and turns off it. Hansi Flick's team won a domestic treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana titles while falling agonisingly short in the Champions League semi-finals against Inter. At the same time, we saw the club once again scramble to deal with their deep financial problems and La Liga's strict salary cap rules. Advertisement The most dramatic situation came during the January transfer window, when Spanish government intervention was required for Barca to field attacking midfielder Dani Olmo and back-up forward Pau Victor for the second half of last season. Further drama appears very likely this summer — as Barca are already making big moves in the transfer market. On Wednesday, Espanyol goalkeeper Joan Garcia signed after Barca met his €25million (£21.4m, $28.8m) release clause. On Thursday, The Athletic reported that the club has reached a verbal agreement with Nico Williams over personal terms before a potential €60m move. At the start of this week, however, La Liga president Javier Tebas said Barca still have big financial issues to resolve. Here, we sum up Barca's current financial situation and attempt to predict what may happen between now and the end of the transfer window. We also explain why a set of VIP seats at the Camp Nou could be key. For years now, Barca's problem has not been finding significant funds to buy players, but registering many of these signings with La Liga. The main difficulty is that they have yet to really resolve their past financial problems — including at least €1.3bn of debt from when Laporta returned as president in 2021. Another issue is that the short-term solutions — often called levers — deployed to raise money to spend on transfers have not always been accepted by La Liga, who want the club to be run in a more sustainable way. Barca have regularly viewed this as unfair limitation on their activities, and looked to find creative ways to register players — such as when Olmo and Victor were registered for the first half of the 2024-25 campaign using a rule that allows for the temporary replacement of players ruled out through long-term injuries (in that case defender Andreas Christensen). Advertisement In January, La Liga revoked their registrations after concluding Barca were in breach of their salary limit. Barca were only able to re-register the players when, in April, the Spanish government's High Council of Sports (CSD) sports court forced La Liga to do so. That CSD ruling did not question Spanish football's financial controls, but stated the joint committee formed by La Liga and the Spanish football federation (RFEF) did not have the power to revoke Olmo and Victor's licenses in early January. La Liga has confirmed to The Athletic this means the pair are now registered to play for Barca until the end of their contracts in 2030 (Olmo) and 2029 (Victor) — although a La Liga appeal of that CSD decision to a different court has yet to be heard. La Liga still maintains Barca did not have space in their salary limit to register Olmo and Victor back in January. And on Tuesday, La Liga president Javier Tebas said Barcelona are still not in line with their salary-limit rules. Commenting on Barca's €25m move for goalkeeper Garcia (which was completed on Wednesday), Tebas said: 'Barca need to do some things to register Joan Garcia. Not a lot of things, but they know what they need to do in that regard. I am not going to reveal them here. One thing is to make the signing official, the other one is: can they register him?' Right now, Barca's room for manoeuvre this summer will be limited unless they can raise more money — either through selling players or growing the club's income. Through autumn 2024, Barca's club hierarchy tried various ways to raise money to register Olmo and Victor permanently with La Liga. A new kit deal with Nike helped, but was not enough. Barca even took a legal case against the regulations to a Catalan court but were unsuccessful. In December, Barca's board decided to sell future revenues from 475 VIP seats at the revamped Camp Nou, which remains under construction, as another new 'lever'. Few details of what the club called a new Personal Seat License (PSL) business model were made public, but Laporta said at a news conference in mid-January that this raised €100m from two different investors. This includes €70m from the UAE-based New Era Visionary Group (NEVG) owned by Moldovan businessman Ruslan Birladeanu, and €30m from the Qatari-backed, UK-based investment fund Forta Advisors Limited. Nuevas fotos del Spotify Camp Nou 🏟️ — FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) June 3, 2025 Barca had already received the entire €30m sum from the Qatari investors and 40 per cent of the remainder (€28m), Laporta said. Barca said when announcing the deal that both sets of investor groups had been subject to a mandatory review before the deal, and received positive reports from the club's compliance department and economic commission. Advertisement In early April, La Liga questioned the financing of these deals, saying they had been certified by an unnamed auditor back in January. La Liga also said Barca's previous auditors, Grant Thornton, did not mention the €100m in its financial update on the club filed in December, nor did the new auditors, Crowe Global, mention the new income in its report to the league in early April. Barca responded with 'surprise and indignation', claiming that making public such information was 'inappropriate' and that Tebas' public comments on the matter were aimed at 'destabilising' Barca. Reports in the Catalan media have said that the 475 VIP seats (a small part of the 9,400 VIP seats the Camp Nou will have when complete) must be built for the current auditors to count this money within the club's 2024-25 accounts. Barca did not reply when asked for details on this, but Laporta told media outlet Jijantes in mid-May: 'The (VIP seats) are done. Probably, they can be taken into account starting this month. We need to remember that La Liga fixes the salary limit when they receive our budgets.' In early June, La Liga said it had not yet received any details about money coming from the sale of the VIP seats and so has not been able to include it yet within salary limit calculations for the coming season. The first 'levers' pulled by Laporta's board were the sale of 25 per cent of Barca's future La Liga TV rights in 2022 for a total of €400m. That means Barca make season-on-season payments of around €40m a season to U.S. investors Sixth Street. More complex is the Barca Studios/Barca Vision project, which Laporta's board had previously viewed as an asset that strengthened the club's financial situation. In August 2023, it was ambitiously valued at $1billion. Advertisement Last October, with money counted on from past investors in the project not having arrived, Barca's previous auditors mandated the value of the Barca Studios/Barca Vision asset be partly written down. This meant that instead of a €12m profit, the club's 2023-24 loss accounts actually showed an overall net loss of €91m. Unless new investors are found for the project — now known as Barca Media — the current auditors will have to decide whether another write-down is required for the 2024-25 accounts. Should this happen, La Liga's rules mean the salary limit for 2025-26 would likely need to be lowered. Asked about this issue, Barca told The Athletic that any new partners for Barca Media would be communicated using the club's official channels. Another unknown is a new Barca Mobile arm of the club's commercial activities, a virtual mobile operator where users pay for roaming data plans via Barca's website, which was launched in April 2025. Laporta predicted it would be a 'goldmine' for the club. The club's main partner in Barca Mobile is NEVG, the same group owned by Moldovan businessman Birladeanu which bought a chunk of the VIP seats at the new Camp Nou. NEVG's only business activities, per its website, are the contracts it has with Barca. Predicting Barca transfer windows is generally difficult, and even many of those involved behind the scenes have been surprised by events during previous summers. As of early June, about €42m of the money being paid by NEVG for its share of future VIP revenues was yet to be received by Barcelona. Catalan media reports have suggested Birladeanu will facilitate another payment by June 30, so it can be included in the 2024-25 final accounts, but it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen. Asked about this possibility by The Athletic, Barca declined to comment, and NEVG did not reply. Barca will also be looking to raise money and open space in their salary limit by moving on unwanted players — including Ansu Fati and Inaki Pena. Other more important squad members could potentially be sold, with defender Ronald Araujo and goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen the subject of transfer speculation over their futures. Barcelona have actually secured some funds via a few sales this summer. Como met the €6m release clause in the contract of 21-year-old full-back Alex Valle, who had been on loan at the Italian club, while West Ham United's €39m signing of Jean-Clair Todibo from Nice, following his season on loan, means Barca are set to earn another €7.8m, as they inserted a 20 per cent sell-on clause in the deal when selling the defender to the French side in 2021. Advertisement They have also terminated Clement Lenglet's contract — the defender had two years left on it, and has now joined Atletico Madrid, where he was on loan last season. Barca will want to bring in enough money to bring themselves below their squad salary limit. That would mean they can spend any funds raised, rather than being forced by La Liga's rules to put a significant percentage (around half) towards paying off past debts. This is known as the 1:1 rule in Spain, given clubs can spend a euro for every euro they raise. 'I believe we'll be able to sign players, we'll be at '1:1', and I hope we stay like that for many years,' Laporta told Jijantes in May. 'It's true we were pretty tight, so what we have to do is keep working. It's always difficult, as the 'fair play' rules are, let's say, 'sui generis' (unique). The regulations are open to interpretation. We'll have to keep fighting. It won't be easy, but that way it'll be even sweeter when we do it.' More 'fighting' over the interpretation of the salary limit rules looks likely. That will not be easy, given relations with La Liga were strained even before the Olmo/Victor saga. 'I hope Barca can be 1:1 next window, but you'd have to ask them if they can do that,' Tebas told The Athletic in April. 'They know what they have to do, and we hope it does not happen 48 hours before the window closes in August. We hope not to have any more surprises.' (Top image: Edith Geuppert –)
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Barcelona design special fitness plan for key duo to help stay injury-free
Barcelona are not only focused on signing reinforcements this summer to build a competitive squad under Hansi Flick – they are also working on optimising the physical condition of players already at the club. Last year, the coaching staff worked out a specific plan to improve the fitness of key midfielder Pedri, who had shown signs of being injury-prone. Advertisement The idea worked a treat as the Spaniard did not suffer from any injuries and showcased that he is the best in the business when fit and playing regularly. Fitness plans for Dani Olmo and Ronald Araujo As such, Mundo Deportivo now reports that Barcelona duo Ronald Araujo and Dani Olmo will follow specially designed summer programmes aimed at helping them leave last season's injury troubles behind. Following the successful work done with Pedri, Flick's coaching staff has now turned its attention to Olmo and Araujo. The objective is for both players to enjoy a strong, injury-free campaign. Fitness coach Julio Tous, in coordination with the medical staff and with full cooperation from the players, conducted an in-depth muscle analysis to understand their muscle fibre structure. Dani Olmo endured an injury-riddled season. (Photo by) This will allow for personalised training routines designed to prevent injuries and enhance performance. This will be applied to both Araujo and Olmo. Advertisement Having returned to Barcelona last summer, Olmo endured a turbulent season, affected by registration issues and multiple injuries. Despite occasional flashes of top form, he was never able to maintain consistent fitness. The Spaniard underwent a thorough physical evaluation that analysed various muscular and physiological parameters, which in turn allowed the staff to tailor his training. This summer, he will continue following a detailed plan including physical sessions, rest periods, and nutrition guidelines. Araujo will follow the same path after having spent the entire first half of the season out due to an injury that needed surgery and then missing a few matches here and there due to continued fitness issues. Advertisement The plan was confirmed by sporting director Deco during an interview in Brazil. 'We have Marc Bernal who was injured at the beginning of the season, as well as Ronald Araujo and Dani Olmo, and we are working to ensure that they do not get injured again,' he said.
Forbes
07-06-2025
- Sport
- Forbes
FC Barcelona Responds To Premier League Interest For First Team Star
FC Barcelona has responded to another offer from Premier League giant Chelsea for one of its star ... More players in Fermin Lopez according to Mundo Deportivo, which cited anonymous sources. FC Barcelona has responded to another offer from Premier League giant Chelsea for one of its star players in Fermin Lopez according to Mundo Deportivo, which cited anonymous sources. Fermin is an example to any budding professional for his work ethic and humble attitude. Often struggling in La Masia because of his inferior height and weight, he happily went out on loan to Linares while on the fringes of the Barca reserve team. Playing at a lower level ended up being a revelation for the Andalusian, who impressed then-head coach Xavi Hernandez in preseason upon his return to Catalonia and was taken on a preseason tour of the United States. Scoring a screamer in a friendly against Real Madrid, Fermin hasn't looked back since and continued to blossom under Xavi's successor Flick with protagonist performances against Bayern Munich in the Champions League among others. Becoming a domestic treble winner in Spain to compliment his Euro 2024 and Olympic gold medals for La Roja, Fermin is understandably the subject of interest from further afield. The fact that Dani Olmo pretty much has the CAM spot locked down under Flick as Fermin and Gavi battle for the rest of the minutes might make those from outside the club think they can tempt Barca into a sale, and it was reported this week by El Chiringuito that Premier League giant Chelsea has offered €70 million to try and make Fermin club teammates with his international comrade, and fellow former La Masia alumnus, Marc Cucurella at Stamford Bridge. That bid was turned down, and Mundo Deportivo also details how anonymous sources close to the negotiations explained that Chelsea has also offered a part exchange. This would entail Lopez heading to the English capital and Christopher Nkunku travelling in the opposite direction to its Catalan counterpart. Yet Barca has also reportedly knocked back that suggestion too, as the top priority of Sporting Director Deco and President Joan Laporta is to try and land Liverpool's Luis Diaz. FC Barcelona should not let Fermin go for two reasons. Firstly, we can't forget how injury-prone Olmo is, while there are also few players that come racing out of the traps with such intensity with a goalscoring threat to match for Flick.
New York Times
05-06-2025
- Business
- New York Times
How will Barcelona's financial situation affect their transfers this summer?
Barcelona's 2024-25 campaign was thrilling on the pitch — but there were equally dramatic twists and turns off it. Hansi Flick's team won a domestic treble of La Liga, Copa del Rey and Supercopa de Espana titles while falling agonisingly short in the Champions League semi-finals against Inter. At the same time, we saw the club once again scramble to deal with their deep financial problems and La Liga's strict salary cap rules. Advertisement The most dramatic situation came during the January transfer window, when Spanish government intervention was required for Barca to field attacking midfielder Dani Olmo and back-up forward Pau Victor for the second half of last season. Further drama appears very likely this summer, with Barca president Joan Laporta insisting the team should be able to sign players as normal, while his La Liga counterpart Javier Tebas says the Catalans still have big financial issues to resolve. Ahead of the end of the club's financial year on June 30, The Athletic sums up the current nature of Barca's situation and attempts to predict what may happen between now and the end of the transfer window in late August… as well as explaining why a set of VIP seats at the Camp Nou could be key. On May 19, Laporta told Catalan TV3 show 'La Nit dels Campions' that Barca's total income for the 2024-25 season would be 'around €950million' ($1billion or £802m at current exchange rates) and predicted that their budget for 2025-26 would be 'more than €1bn'. Asked whether new signings would be arriving, Laporta was coy but suggested the squad would be strengthened. 'First we have to assess what we have, and then we'll reinforce some positions,' Laporta replied. Sporting director Deco and Flick have both spoken about adding more attacking players to the squad, while Laporta told TV3 that goalkeeper was a position they were looking at. Espanyol 'keeper Joan Garcia is Barca's top target, as The Athletic reported in Barca's Transfer DealSheet on Tuesday. For some years now, the problem for Barca has not been finding significant money to buy players, but registering many of these signings with La Liga. The problem for Barca is that they have yet to really resolve the club's past financial problems — including at least €1.3bn of debt from when Laporta returned as president in 2021. Another issue is that the short-term solutions — often called levers — previously deployed to raise money to spend on transfers have not always been accepted by La Liga, who want the club to be run in a more sustainable way. Barca have regularly viewed this as unfair limitation on their activities, and looked to find creative ways to register players — such as when Olmo and Victor were registered for the first half of the 2024-25 campaign using a rule that allows for the temporary replacement of players ruled out through long-term injuries (in that case defender Andreas Christensen). Advertisement Last April, the Spanish government's High Council of Sports (CSD) sports court forced La Liga to register Olmo and Victor to play for Barca for the remainder of 2024-25. That CSD ruling did not question Spanish football's financial controls, but stated the joint committee formed by La Liga and the Spanish football federation (RFEF) did not have the power to revoke Olmo and Victor's licenses in early January. La Liga has confirmed to The Athletic this means the pair are now registered to play for Barca in La Liga until the end of their contracts in 2030 (Olmo) and 2029 (Victor) — although a La Liga appeal of that CSD decision to a different court has yet to be heard. Meanwhile, La Liga maintains Barca did not have space in their current salary limit to register Olmo and Victor back in January. Adding the 'cost' of these two players to their squad means that Barca exceeded their permitted salary limit. So their room for manoeuvre this summer will be limited unless they can raise more money — either through selling players or growing the club's income. Through autumn 2024, Barca's club hierarchy tried various ways to raise money required to register Olmo and Victor permanently with La Liga. A new kit deal with Nike helped, but was not enough. Barca even took a legal case against the regulations to a Catalan court but were unsuccessful. In December, Barca's board decided to sell future revenues from 475 VIP seats at the revamped Camp Nou, which remains under construction, as another new 'lever'. Few details of what the club called a new Personal Seat License (PSL) business model were made public, but Laporta said in mid-January that this raised €100m from two different investors. This includes €70m from the UAE-based New Era Visionary Group (NEVG) owned by Moldovan businessman Ruslan Birladeanu, and €30m from the Qatari-backed, UK-based investment fund Forta Advisors Limited. Nuevas fotos del Spotify Camp Nou 🏟️ — FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) June 3, 2025 Barca had already received the entire €30m sum from the Qatari investors and 40 per cent of the remainder (€28m), Laporta said in the mid January press conference. Barca said when announcing the deal that both sets of investor groups had been subject to a mandatory review before the deal, and received positive reports from the club's Compliance Department and Economic Commission. In early April, La Liga questioned the financing of these deals, saying they had been certified by an unnamed auditor back in January. La Liga also said Barca's previous auditors, Grant Thornton, did not mention the €100m in its financial update on the club filed in December, nor did the new auditors, Crowe Global, mention the new income in its report to the league in early April. Barca responded with 'surprise and indignation', claiming that making public such information was 'inappropriate' and that Tebas' public comments on the matter were aimed at 'destabilising' Barca. Reports in the Catalan media have said that the 475 VIP seats (a small part of the 9,400 VIP seats the Camp Nou will have when complete) must be built for the current auditors to count this money within the club's 2024-25 accounts. Advertisement Barca did not reply when asked for details on this, but Laporta told Jijantes in mid-May, 'The (VIP seats) are done. Probably, they can be taken into account starting this month. We need to remember that La Liga fixes the salary limit when they receive our budgets.' In early June, La Liga said it had not received any details about the money coming from the sale of the VIP seats and so have not been able to include it yet within salary limit calculations for the coming season. Barca have previously experienced issues trying to register new contracts given to their best youngsters when they were struggling with La Liga's salary cap. The bumper new contract recently signed with Lamine Yamal, which runs until 2031 and makes the 17-year-old one of the club's top earners will not be endangered by any issues over the salary limit. Key here is a change made to La Liga's rules last November, which allows clubs to improve the contracts of young players whose performances at senior level mean their value has substantially increased. The idea is to ensure emerging stars at clubs in financial difficulties are not immediately tempted away by the offer of pay rises elsewhere. The amount paid 'above' the current club's salary limit to this young player is then subtracted from the total available for wages and transfers in future years. So no matter what happens with the VIP seats or anything else this summer, Barca fans can be assured Yamal is tied to the Camp Nou long term. Although adding his bumper new salary — at potentially €40m a year — now means even less wiggle room in coming seasons. The first 'levers' pulled by Laporta's board were the sale of 25 per cent of Barca's future La Liga TV rights in 2022 for a total of €400m. That means Barca make season-on-season payments of around €40m a season to U.S. investors Sixth Street. More complex is the Barca Studios/Barca Vision project, which Laporta's board had previously viewed as an asset that strengthened the club's financial situation. In August 2023, it was ambitiously valued at $1billion. Advertisement Last October, with money counted on from past investors in the project not having arrived, Barca's previous auditors mandated the value of the Barca Studios/Barca Vision asset be partly written down. This meant that instead of a €12m profit, the club's 2023-24 loss accounts actually showed an overall net loss of €91m. Unless new investors are found for the project — now known as Barca Media — the current auditors will have to decide whether another write-down is required for the 2024-25 accounts. Should this happen, La Liga's rules mean the salary limit for 2025-26 would likely need to be lowered. Asked about this issue, Barca told The Athletic that any new partners for Barca Media would be communicated using the club's official channels. Another unknown is a new Barca Mobile arm of the club's commercial activities, a virtual mobile operator where users pay for roaming data plans via Barca's website, which was launched in April 2025. Laporta predicted it would be a 'goldmine' for the club. The club's main partner in Barca Mobile is NEVG, the same group owned by Moldovan businessman Birladeanu which bought a chunk of the VIP seats at the new Camp Nou. NEVG's only business activities, per its website, are the contracts it has with Barca. Predicting Barca transfer windows is generally difficult, and even many of those involved behind the scenes have been surprised by events during previous summers. About €42m of the money being paid by NEVG for its share of future VIP revenues has yet to be received by Barcelona. Catalan media reports have suggested Birladeanu will facilitate another payment by June 30, so it can be included in the 2024-25 final accounts, but it remains to be seen whether this will actually happen. Asked about this possibility by The Athletic, Barca declined to comment, and NEVG did not reply. Barca will also be looking to raise money and open space in their salary limit by moving on unwanted players — including Ansu Fati, Clement Lenglet and Inaki Pena. Other more important squad members could potentially be sold, with defender Ronald Araujo and goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen the subject of transfer speculation over their futures. Barca will want to bring in enough money to bring themselves below their squad salary limit. That would mean they can spend any funds raised, rather than being forced by La Liga's rules to put a significant percentage (around half) towards paying off past debts. This is known as the 1:1 rule in Spain, given clubs can spend a euro for every euro they raise. Advertisement 'I believe we'll be able to sign players, we'll be at '1:1', and I hope we stay like that for many years,' Laporta told Jijantes. 'It's true we were pretty tight, so what we have to do is keep working. It's always difficult, as the 'fair play' rules are, let's say, 'sui generis' (unique). The regulations are open to interpretation. We'll have to keep fighting. It won't be easy, but that way it'll be even sweeter when we do it.' More 'fighting' over the interpretation of the salary limit rules looks likely. That will not be easy, given relations with La Liga were strained even before the Olmo/Victor saga. 'I hope Barca can be 1:1 next window, but you'd have to ask them if they can do that,' Tebas told The Athletic in April. 'They know what they have to do, and we hope it does not happen 48 hours before the window closes in August. We hope not to have any more surprises.' (Top image: Flick and Laporta. Javier Borrego/Europa Press via Getty Images)
