Thebes believes Laporta's numbers

BarcelonaThe real estate bubble had catastrophic consequences for Spanish football. Many clubs depended on construction companies or businesses linked to the property sector that went bankrupt, and this led to global non-payments, to players and to social security. In 2012, the Spanish government said enough was enough and threatened to intervene in the football business. To protect themselves, the clubs decided to create a mandatory regulation that would not only oblige everyone to balance their accounts but also require entities to demonstrate at the start of the season that they would have sufficiently good budgets to pay all the debts of the season. At that moment, financial fair play was born.

The regulation was applied instantly and was modified over the years to adapt to the needs of the clubs, the demands of the market, and the cunning of some executives who looked for every possible loophole to bypass it. But this preventive economic control, despite being quite strict, went relatively unnoticed in the media until 2020, following the pandemic, when Barça got into trouble. Since then, it has been one of the star topics. So much so that, since then, the entity chaired by Javier Tebas has multiplied the information sessions to explain how

fair play works and to justify the adjustments that have been made before the transfer markets begin.

While Real Madrid was shrewd during the pandemic and managed to weather the storm without losses in its balance sheet, Barça fell victim to the poor economic decisions made by former president Bartomeu and, in 2021, to the surprising decision of Laporta's new board to reformulate the accounts and record 555 million in losses in a single financial year. A burden that has weighed for five years, as economic control not only takes into account the budget for the current season but also deducts losses from previous ones. That is why, for ten transfer markets – five summer and five winter – Barça has had difficulties registering players

and has had to resort to levers, personal guarantees, the 3:1 rule, or the favors of a League that, in some cases, has been benevolent to the azulgrana team.

Barça has had difficulties registering playersfair play cannot reveal confidential figures, but reading between the lines, it is guessed that Barça is on the right track. So much so that at Camp Nou, where they have also done the calculations, they already take it for granted. "And they are not mistaken," confirms one of the sources consulted from the employers' association.

VIP seats, Camp Nou reopening, and Lewandowski's departure

VIP seats, Camp Nou reopening, and Lewandowski's departureThese operations not only allow entry into the 1:1 rule but also provide some room to register new players. For now, the figure has not yet been disclosed, but between everything Barça has already accumulated and the hypothetical departures of players like Marc Casadó, Jules Koundé, or Alejandro Baldé – for whom offers will be considered – the club and La Liga anticipate a summer like those before the pandemic. If until recently those in the league's corridors insisted that Barça "is in a very bad way", they now say that "they will be able to sign well".