The precarious state of Barcelona’s finances is a problem which the club, and Spanish football as a whole, seems determined to ignore for most of the time, but it is when the club is forced to give away one of its highest earning players it can hardly be avoided.
[The impending departure of midfielder Ilkay Gundogan](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/08/20/ilkay-gundogan-premier-league-return-barcelona-man-city/), a crucial part of the side last year, who started more league games than any other player, is one such moment. The great German midfielder departed Manchester City as a treble-winning hero last summer, a free agent who chose to spend the last days of his career in Catalonia. And why not? But as Gundogan is finding out – Barcelona are not the club they used to be.
He has now been made available on a free transfer just one year after joining and is likely to come back to City – who perhaps cannot believe their luck. Gundogan has a contract at Barcelona until 2026, but his free agent salary, expected to be around £16 million, is too much for the club as they seek to register Dani Olmo, one of Spain’s Euro 2024 winning side. The signing from RB Leipzig does not fit into the permitted wage bill unless Barcelona can reduce current costs significantly.
It is another sign that the club’s huge debt, around €3 billion (£2.56 billion) including the borrowing for the building of the new Nou Camp, is controlling them – rather than the other way around. There have been many attempts to generate revenue which will permit them, under La Liga regulations, to spend more on wages. Both sides have an interest in those provisos being met although rival clubs, including Real Madrid, will wish for the necessary scrutiny to be applied.
The reality is that Barcelona have long sold many of their assets, or those they are permitted to sell under La Liga financial controls. Chief among those was the sale of future income streams to the US investor Sixth Street two years ago – 25 per cent of future domestic television revenue for the next 20 years – to build the Barcelona team that won its last league title in 2022-2023 under then manager Xavi Hernandez.
In the summer of 2022, Barcelona signed Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha among others using the Sixth Street money which La Liga permits them to book as revenue. The sale of future revenue, known in Spain as “palancas” or financial “levers”, is widespread in the Spanish game including the 2021 “Boost La Liga” deal with Swiss private equity firm CVC Partners.
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***Telegraph Sport’s Sam Wallace writes:***
The precarious state of Barcelona’s finances is a problem which the club, and Spanish football as a whole, seems determined to ignore for most of the time, but it is when the club is forced to give away one of its highest earning players it can hardly be avoided.
[The impending departure of midfielder Ilkay Gundogan](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/08/20/ilkay-gundogan-premier-league-return-barcelona-man-city/), a crucial part of the side last year, who started more league games than any other player, is one such moment. The great German midfielder departed Manchester City as a treble-winning hero last summer, a free agent who chose to spend the last days of his career in Catalonia. And why not? But as Gundogan is finding out – Barcelona are not the club they used to be.
He has now been made available on a free transfer just one year after joining and is likely to come back to City – who perhaps cannot believe their luck. Gundogan has a contract at Barcelona until 2026, but his free agent salary, expected to be around £16 million, is too much for the club as they seek to register Dani Olmo, one of Spain’s Euro 2024 winning side. The signing from RB Leipzig does not fit into the permitted wage bill unless Barcelona can reduce current costs significantly.
It is another sign that the club’s huge debt, around €3 billion (£2.56 billion) including the borrowing for the building of the new Nou Camp, is controlling them – rather than the other way around. There have been many attempts to generate revenue which will permit them, under La Liga regulations, to spend more on wages. Both sides have an interest in those provisos being met although rival clubs, including Real Madrid, will wish for the necessary scrutiny to be applied.
The reality is that Barcelona have long sold many of their assets, or those they are permitted to sell under La Liga financial controls. Chief among those was the sale of future income streams to the US investor Sixth Street two years ago – 25 per cent of future domestic television revenue for the next 20 years – to build the Barcelona team that won its last league title in 2022-2023 under then manager Xavi Hernandez.
In the summer of 2022, Barcelona signed Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha among others using the Sixth Street money which La Liga permits them to book as revenue. The sale of future revenue, known in Spain as “palancas” or financial “levers”, is widespread in the Spanish game including the 2021 “Boost La Liga” deal with Swiss private equity firm CVC Partners.
**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/08/21/barcelona-chaos-transfers-finances-mortgage-future-gundogan/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2024/08/21/barcelona-chaos-transfers-finances-mortgage-future-gundogan/)
Only a journalist would call letting go of a very highly paid player “financial mismanagement”.