BarcelonaIn the summer of 2021, Barça completed the transfer of Yusuf Demir, an Austrian striker who came from Rapid Vienna. The Catalan club paid half a million to have his services for a year and, in the agreement, included a clause according to which if he played 10 games, Barça would buy him in exchange for 10 million euros. The team already had problems with him fair play of the League and sought this formula to evade financial control. But when the employer validated the contract, it considered that these variables were so easy to meet that they should be considered directly as an expense.
Consequently, far from avoiding the fair play, Barça had added a problem to the treasury. The story ended half a year later. Demir only played nine games and at Christmas the transfer was cancelled. Thus, the Blaugrana recovered 10 million in salary, which they would use that winter to strengthen themselves with names like Aubameyang or Ferran Torres.
Two years later, Barça’s financial problems persist. The big question being asked at the club is not whether there is money to sign, but whether the League will let them register someone for a season in which, for dessert, they will lose income due to the move to Montjuïc. At the moment, in the sports office they are working at full capacity trying to outline the configuration of the team for next year, in which a revolution is expected in the dressing room with numerous losses and also, if they can, some additions. Among the candidates, Leo Messi, the apple of President Joan Laporta’s eyes.
At this point in the film, it is already known that Joan Laporta, who has had an open wound since Leo Messi left, wants the Argentine to return to Barça, yes or no. And the sports vice-president, Rafael Yuste, admitted a few days ago that there were “contacts” with his environment. At the Camp Nou they assume that Messi will not complete the third optional year of his contract with PSG and they are scrambling to find the formula that makes possible a last dance of Blaugrana “At the outset, the salary must be greatly reduced. And then, we will have to see what the League says,” they point out from the box office.
For the time being, the employers are avoiding speaking out so as not to engage in “speculation”. Inside doors, however, they admit that it would be good for business for Messi to return. It makes all the sense in the world, since its impact would translate into more income in terms of sponsorships and television rights. However, no matter how much good will there may be in the body chaired by Javier Tebas, everything will depend on two factors: firstly, that Barça gain a salary margin – right now it is exceeded by 200 million -; and then, that Messi’s contract be adjusted to the financial control of the League.
The trap of easy compliance variables is over
Most professional contracts are divided into two sections: the fixed part, with guaranteed remuneration for the player, and the variable part, based on individual or collective performance. For many years it had been played with a small fixed and easy-to-comply variables in order to make a small cheat in the accounting aspect and thus avoid the salary limitations. And this is precisely one of the options that had been put on the table so that Messi could return to Barcelona. But the financial control regulations of the League were adapted, some time ago, to avoid situations of this kind. He went on to differentiate between the variables of easy or difficult compliance. As an example, and as happened with Demir, it is established that any amount that must be paid if less than twenty matches are played is considered a fixed expense, because there is a “high probability” that I end up complying. The same goes for cases where less than 45 minutes played – per match – are required to collect any concept.
The regulations are very explicit in the Second Division, when it comes to regulating wages, to avoid unbridgeable gaps between clubs. On the other hand, it is more lax in Primera, where the only indispensable requirement is to receive the minimum salary established by the agreement: 155,000 euros per year. Of course, it makes it very clear that if a club has a contract or some type of additional agreement with a player, it must also deliver this documentation to the League so that it passes the financial control filter. And it reserves the right, if it sees “disproportionate variables” – even if they are for things more difficult to fulfill, such as a specific title -, to record this money as insured salary expenses.
La Liga is an actor that Barça cannot overlook in Messi’s return
Among the many ideas to bring Messi back, he had thought about the possibility of signing a symbolic contract and organizing one or more friendlies to give the player a share of the box office. If this were to happen, the League could calculate the approximate amount that the player would receive and record it in the guaranteed sports salary section. The same would happen if Barça closes an agreement with a sponsor that conditions the money on the striker’s return. In the same way that Barça will have to convince Messi with a firm offer, they will also have to sit down and talk to the League in order to sign him up.