Barcelona 'unable to register nine players' for next season due to financial crisis

Barcelona are currently unable to register nine first team players to play next season due to their ongoing financial crisis.

Barcelona have been in financial turmoil for a few years now, and in recent seasons have found various ways to raise funds and register new signings to play within La Liga's salary limits.

The Catalan club pulled several 'levers' in the summers of 2022 and 2023, including selling rights for Barca Studios, an in-house production company.

However, Barca's salary cap has fallen again ahead of next season, even though it fell from £558 million to £232m at the start of last season.

According to The Athletic, Barca must find around €130m by June 30 or face severe difficulties in adding new players to Hansi Flick's squad due to their way they overshot their salary limit in 2023-24.

Not only that, but as things stand, nine of the 25 players who started La Liga games for Barcelona in 2023-24 cannot be registered for Flick's first campaign.

Sergi Roberto and Marcos Alonso are out of contract on June 30, while the loan deals for Joao Cancelo and Joao Felix will expire on the same day.

That date also sees Inigo Martinez and Vitor Roque become ‘unregistered’ with La Liga due to the unorthodox ways both were levered onto the squad list for last season.

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La Masia products Alejandro Balde, Lamine Yamal, Pau Cubarsi and Hector Fort all still need to have their senior contracts formally accepted by La Liga.

Barca are currently involved in a legal battle with the league over the status of homegrown star Gavi.

If re-signed, the salaries all of the aforementioned players would count against the new salary cap.

Matters are complicated further by the fact that players returning from loan, such as Ansu Fati, Eric Garcia, Clement Lenglet and Sergino Dest, are automatically registered to play in 2024-25, meaning their salaries are all currently counting against the cap.

Club sources told The Athletic that there is confidence that the €130m will be found before the end of the month, with new investors in Barca Studios and a renegotiated deal with kit supplier Nike both being explored.