As free transfers go this summer, getting Gavi, the 18-year-old Golden Boy winner who has already played in a World Cup finals, scored in a Nations League game, and will probably have already won his first league title, looks like very good business.
Barcelona’s human-cannonball midfielder faces Arsenal’s Martin Odegaard this weekend when Spain take on Norway and just as the Premier League’s greater financial muscle enabled them to take him to England so Gavi could go the same way.
Luis Enrique gave the teenager international honours after he had only planned a handful of games for his club.
If the former Spain coach takes a job in England this summer, as he is expected to do, and he makes Gavi a transfer target there will be little Barcelona can do about him taking their prize midfielder on a free.
The problem for Barcelona is that La Liga will not let them register the new contract they have agreed with Gavi because they say it would put the club beyond the limits of its ‘maximum squad spend’.
In a protracted legal wrangle of temporary injunctions and arguments over deadlines, Barcelona still have another appeal to use up but for the moment the battle over Gavi’s contract looks like going the Spanish League’s way and that means every day he is a day closer to being able to leave in the summer for nothing. His deal has a clause that would allow him to leave on June 30.
Fortunately for the club the player does not want to leave on June 30 or at any time soon. He is likely to remain at the club through July and August giving them time to get other players out so they can register his salary increase.
The club say they can afford his pay increase to around 7m euros a season – a new deal that was agreed at the start of this season – in fact he’s already earning on his new terms.
But when Barcelona gave Gavi his new contract last September, they were still banking on activating more so-called economic ‘levers’ this summer to boost revenue levels and so be given greater scope by LaLiga in their total squad spend.
LaLiga changed the rules limiting the proportion of revenue a club can generate from mortgaging future earnings to five percent so they are now restricted.
Barcelona leased 49 per cent of future television rights, and 49 per cent of Barca Studios to investors last summer and they were hoping to do something similar with the club’s merchandising arm but it will now not help them increase their permitted spend.
Something will have to give in terms of the squad instead. The 19-year-old left back Alejandro Balde, and 23-year-old centre-back Ronald Araujo also have new contracts that need to be registered. Barcelona do not want to lose them either.
Ansu Fati has been identified as the expendable asset but his ongoing struggle for form and fitness has taken down original ideas on price from €100m valuation to a possible €12m loan deal.
Having to pick and choose which young talent to take to auction will be hard for coach Xavi. And the process is harder still because players don’t want to leave.
Frenkie de Jong would have left for Manchester United last summer but he blocked the move. Gavi is just as adamant that he will stay at the club. And with the title celebrations at some point now looking a formality that tightly bonded squad is likely to be even more difficult to break up.
Barcelona are hoping an answer will come from somewhere. The end of March is the date fixed for them to close on new financial backing totaling €1.5billion to help finance the €900m stadium rebuild.
As yet there is no announcement amid rumours that the corruption court case concerning payments to a referees’ chief from 2001 to 2018 has not helped the process.
Moving to a temporary home next season will take a further 94m euros off of matchday revenue. And there is the hole created by dropping out of the Champions League at the group stage that needs filling.
That was something else they did not reckon with when they agreed Gavi’s deal.
Their chances of making it beyond the group next season will be far better with their rambunctious midfield sensation but their struggles to convince LaLiga that they can afford him have all the Premier League giants watching with interest.