Barcelona on the verge of accepting salary limit disaster due licencing issues

Barcelona are facing another summer of salary limit struggles, with their latest ‘economic lever’ unlikely to be available to them before the end of the summer transfer window. The reason being the delays in work on Camp Nou, which are already eight months behind schedule.

In January, Barcelona ratified the lease of 475 VIP seats for the next 30 years to Fort Advisors and New Era Visionary Group. The deal brought in €100m to their accounts, and put the club back within their La Liga salary limit, allowing them to register players using 100% of the money they save or earn. However in March, auditors Crowe removed the income from their balance sheet as the product does not yet exist, and as such, from their salary limit.

Last week Barcelona were granted an events licence by the Barcelona City Council, the first of two that they need to be able to play games at Spotify Camp Nou. However, Sport, MD and Marca all report that Barcelona have all but given up hope of the second licence – allowing first entry into the venue – being granted in time. The club need the licence to come in this week in order to be able to host the Joan Gamper trophy on the 10th of August against Como, as was planned.

The club will make a decision on the Gamper trophy towards the end of this week. If Camp Nou is off the table, they could either host the match at the Estadi Johan Cruyff (6,000 capacity), or whether to cancel the event outright. Initially they had hoped to host it with 60,000 fans, then 30,000, but it now looks like a close to impossible ask. Barcelona do believe they will be able to host their first home match of the season on the 14th of September.

If indeed that is the case, then it will have a dramatic impact on Barcelona’s transfer business. The Blaugrana have already signed Joan Garcia for €25m this summer, but so far unable to register him. They still have other new contracts to register, including Wojciech Szczesny too. Strengthening their attack is also a priority this summer, but a major move seems impossible without their €100m lease being included in their salary limit.