Barcelona looking to sell economic lever for €40m this summer

Barcelona and the never-ending story of the economic levers. The Blaugrana have been toiling with their salary limit ever since the first summer when they sold some of their assets to fund major spending in the transfer window, and are looking to sell shares in Barca Vision again.

Back in the summer of 2022, Barcelona sanction the sale of 25% of their TV rights money for €527.5m over the next 25 years, a deal that provided a short-term cash injection. However the deal to sell 49.5% of the shares in Barca Vision, their digital monetisation wing, for a total of €200m. However they only ever received around €65m of those fees, and by virtue of the devaluation of the other 50.5% of the company, ended up incurring losses of around €200m.

One of the companies that did not pay up their end of the deal relating to Barca Vision was German Investment fund Libero. They were responsible for purchasing 24.5% of shares that were originally sold, but did not pay. Head of CENAFE Miguel Angel Galan has now claimed to Sport that Barcelona have found a buyer to purchase the €40m worth of shares that were not paid for originally by Libero. This would in theory put Barcelona back within their salary limit, and in the so-called 1:1 spending rule for the transfer market.

After Aramark purchased a 6.14% stake last summer for €25m, the other businesses involved at Barca Vision are Blaugrana Invest (18.96%), Vestigia (4.93%), Hellgas (14.73%) and Orpheus Media (1.83%). It is not entirely clear what the division of shares would be with the new buyer. As evidenced by the past three years, until the money is in Barcelona’s account, there is little certainty over how a new sale at Barca Vision would affect their situation.