The $960 Million Sale FC Barcelona Could Make To Free Up Money For Signings

FC Barcelona is negotiating a deal that could bring in a total of €900mn ($960mn) to alleviate its financial woes and help it make much-needed signings.

El Confidiencial in Spain say that the Catalans are currently in talks with Goldman Sachs and All Sport Finance to sell several rights that would bring in this money, as the La Liga giants currently wade through debts of around $1.5bn.

Primarily, if the deal comes off, 30% of the club’s audiovisual rights would be given up as well as a percentage of the operating income of Espai Barca, which is its new stadium complex.

Containing a €1.5bn ($1.6bn) plan to transform the decaying Camp Nou into a modern 105,000-seat stadium, the project should be ready at the end of 2025 and Barca sees this agreement as an alternative to the CVC one that La Liga wanted it to accept last summer when the club failed to navigate a strict salary cap and then saw Lionel Messi walk to Paris Saint Germain as a free agent.

With the 2021/2022 season finishing on Sunday with a limp 2-0 defeat to Villarreal, Barca are trying to build a team to compete for silverware next term but have a negative -€144mn (-$153mn) salary limit as things stand.

This has forced them to consider putting star midfielder Frenkie de Jong on the transfer market, but finalizing a sale such as that to Goldman Sachs and All Sport Finance might make offloading the Dutchman unnecessary after all.

Losing out on next generation superstar Erling Haaland to Manchester City, Barca could compete better in the transfer market by being given a cash injection of this nature, and focus on landing a pure number ‘9’ such as Robert Lewandowski or Lautaro Martinez.

Other deals that president Joan Laporta supposedly has in the pipeline are the potential 49% sales of Barca Licensing and Merchandising and Barca Studios for €200mn ($214mn) each.

Should all these coups come to fruition, Barca would be looking at bringing in $1.4bn, which is not too far off the total debts that have crippled them as an institution while therefore affecting Xavi Hernandez’s first team.