Barcelona given €750 million+ boost through their three levers

In light of the financial crisis that was looming around at the start of the summer transfer window, the Barcelona board took some drastic steps by sanctioning the sale of some of the club’s major assets.

Among the assets, the club opted to sell 25% of the TV rights, in separate transactions to Sixth Street.

The first transaction saw them give away 10% of the rights for a fee of €267 million, as per David Ibanez, who has put out a comprehensive report on Barça’s earnings from these economic levers.

Barcelona continued to sell the remaining 15% of the TV rights for a figure of around ̉€400 million. However, much of it was utilised in repaying the loan taken from Goldman Sachs during the start of Joan Laporta’s tenure as club president.

As such, the collective figure of up to €667 million was not enough to register the slew of signings Barcelona made in July. The list includes the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde and Raphinha, while Ousmane Dembele also renewed his contract.

With no possibility of the registration of the new signings, Barcelona have recently triggered the third economic lever by selling a 25% stake of Barça Studio to socios.com for a fee of around €100 million.

Reports suggest it will be enough to help Barça register the newer players, although the club are ideally looking to offload all the fringe players in the team, including Martin Braithwaite and even Memphis Depay.

In total, FC Barcelona have generated a fee of €767 million by utilising the three economic levers. Such a generation of wealth could go a long way in helping the club drive out of its financial crisis, although it will be equally important for the Catalans to offer a high level of performance and remain relevant on the European footballing scene.