La Liga president admits worry over Barcelona's financial situation
- Barcelona have been forced to sell club assets to avoid breaching La Liga's financial rules
- Years of mismanagement and the COVID-19 outbreak took their toll on Barca's bank balance
- La Liga president Javier Tebas backs Barca to find a solution
By Tom Gott
La Liga president Javier Tebas has admitted he is worried about Barcelona's finances but has backed the Catalan giants to find a solution.
Years of immense financial risks left Barcelona's bank balance in turmoil even before the COVID-19 outbreak, which brought matchday revenue crashing down and left Barca paying huge wages without bringing much money in.
Since then, the club have been scrambling to abide by La Liga's tightening financial rules, negotiating wage deferrals with their highest-earners and even selling off percentages of their TV and media shares for immediate injections of funds. They also had to let Lionel Messi leave on a free transfer after accepting they were unable to afford an extension.
Things have improved somewhat under the presidency of Joan Laporta, who has been working to reduce Barca's debts ever since he arrived in 2021, but Tebas admitted there are still some serious issues to address.
"It worries me," Tebas confessed to A Bola. "But it doesn't worry me, because I know that the club has mechanisms that will allow it to get out of the state it is in.
"Barca will have to adapt and see what the bes options are to find the way to solve the problems. Some will be more aggressive and unpopular, others less so, and it will be the leaders who will have to decide what is best for the future of the institution."
Asked to explain Barcelona's descent into financial chaos, Tebas insisted they were caught out by the pandemic.
"Barcelona has always had the habit of going to the maximum salary limit imposed by La Liga," he began. "The pandemic arrived, income fell drastically but salaries remained the same, and contracts were for several years due to the issue of amortisation.
"The consequence was that costs were not adapted to the reduction in income. Other clubs managed to do it, yes. Real Madrid, for example, never reached the salary limit they could reach. They were more cautious and that gave them room to control the situation when the crisis arrived."
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