Barcelona president Joan Laporta has spoken out about the financial situation of the club at a press conference. His second spell in charge is soon going to complete two years, and since then, the club has been able to significantly improve on their past under Bartomeu.
Compliance with FFP and the economic levers were the talking points of the summer. And Laporta has now revealed that Barcelona is in a considerably stable situation.
Barcelona president reveals key departures helped balance wage bill
“We are doing well and our main objective is LaLiga. We’re top of the table even though the team is in a transitional phase after so many signings. We’ve got good momentum. We are strong contenders to win the title, but we know that we are going to have to work hard to achieve it. Barça feels good about itself again and we’re starting to show the excellence that’s associated with us.”
“It is due to the salary cap imposed by LaLiga. We were well above the limit when he came in, by 300-350 million. Now we have reduced it by 100 million and we hope to reach 175 million in the summer. In the meantime, we have built a very competitive team for 74 million, when you take signings and sales into account,” Laporta said.
“Every time we overcome an obstacle, LaLiga changes the rule for us. It happened with the financial levers and they put a limit on us after making them. I don’t want to cause controversy, but I could write a monograph about it. It also happened with the buyback options and other things too, like how to calculate revenue and the identity of the auditors who validate certain operations, which can only be certain people.
“Let me be clear; LaLiga are allowed to do that. But it makes life incredibly difficult; let’s see if they start to make it a little easier for us. We will continue working to register players, we’re following the treasury plan and we want to improve our relationship with LaLiga.”
Laporta also revealed that Barcelona don’t need to sell players anytime soon, including Ansu Fati. Vice president Mateu Alemany also revealed that the departures of Gerard Pique and Antoine Griezmann helped them save €90 million overall.
