Barcelona President Joan Laporta has revealed the full extent of Barcelona’s staggering financial predicament,putting the figure at a whooping £1.15bn.
Barcelona are still grieving having waved goodbye to superstar Lionel Messi this month, with the LaLiga giants financially incapable of extending the Argentine’s contract.
Laporta told of how Messi, 34, agreed for a two-year deal to be paid over five years in a bid to ease the financial burden on the club, only for the Spanish top flight to reject this proposal.
The club president also hit out at the ‘criminal’ decisions of his predecessor, Josep Bartomeu, a wholly unpopular figure who resigned from his position earlier this year. Messi has since moved on to French giants Paris Saint-Germain.
And now Laporta has lifted the lid on Barcelona’s disastrous financial woes, revealing that the Catalonians have accrued a £1.15bn debt in a press conference on Monday, a £170m increase from the previous figures in January.
Laporta said: ‘We have found ourselves in a difficult situation to renegotiate the players’ contracts.
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‘Our salaries represent 103 per cent of the club’s total income. That is 20-25 per cent more than our competitors.’
He had earlier revealed that Messi’s new contract would have taken the club’s wage bill to account for 110 per cent of their annual revenue, a figure the league would never accept.
Gerard Pique has moved to help ease the financial burden on the club by accepting a pay cut, with Sergi Roberto, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets expected to follow suit.
Laporta said Pique’s move was ‘admirable’ and that Sergio Aguero’s registration issue is not yet resolved, while admitting that the squad will have to take another pay cut having already done so at the height of Covid.
‘We are happy to have resolved with Pique the issue (of registering new signings),’ he said via Dermot Corrigan. ‘To reduce salary is very admirable.
‘In Kun’s case it is not yet resolved, but we expect other captains to act like Pique.
