La Liga confirm Barcelona will be unable to sign or register new players in upcoming transfer market

Barcelona are still unable to sign or register new players, according to La Liga president.

The Blaugrana are currently top of La Liga despite a shock defeat to Almeria at the weekend but have a slew of financial problems which have been well-documented.

In the summer, they were forced to ask first-team players to take pay cuts, while they also activated a number of levers, which included selling domestic TV rights and their in-house media suite.

In the end, these levers allowed them to register new signings like Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen, Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski and Jules Kounde as part of a €153 million spree.

In order to cut down and balance the books, they asked first-team players to reduce their wages and recouped funds through selling other parts of the club such as domestic TV rights and their in-house media studio.

However, the Catalan side are still in a difficult situation as La Liga continue to come hard on them. Chief executive Javier Tebas says Barca are unable to make any new reinforcements going into the summer window unless they sell players.

They will then be able to spend 40 per cent of the cash they raise from offloading players and are essentially under a budget of minus €200m.

Image: Alamy

"As of today, Barcelona doesn’t have any room in its budget to spend in the upcoming transfer window, Tebas said at the FT Business of Football summit in London, as per Martin Lipton of The Sun.

“Barcelona has been involved in questionable behaviour which has had an impact on LaLiga - and we are acting accordingly.

“We have ruled that they can no longer sign more players.

“They sold off €700m in TV rights and tried to find different ways to solve the situation.

“But they won’t be able to do that next season.

“We have strict economic controls. At the end of each window, we tell all the clubs in La Liga what they can spend.

“In the case of Barcelona, they have to drop from spending on wages and transfers from €650m to €450m - so it’s a budget of minus €200 million.

“They have to reduce their investment in players and we have encouraged them to sell players because for every amount they raise in sales they can spend 40 per cent of that.”

Image: Alamy

Barca have had to adhere to a salary cap imposed by La Liga but were recently hit with a £705,000 fine for breaching Financial Fair Play regulations.

The sanctions are in relation to the signings of Dani Alves and Christensen, as well as the contract extension for defender Ronaldo Araujo, from the 2021/22 financial year.

Topics: La Liga, Barcelona, Xavi

Josh Lawless

Josh is a sports journalist who specialises in football and wrestling. He has been published by Curzon Ashton FC, Late Tackle, Manchester City FC, The Mirror, Read Man City and Manchester Evening News. He provides coverage of professional wrestling and has interviewed some of the biggest names in the field - including the first UK interview with The Hardy Boyz after their return to WWE. He has never sported a pair of Lonsdale Slip-ons, contrary to reports.

@joshlawless_