Barcelona announced that it closed the fiscal year 2021/22 with profits of $98 million and a turnover of around $1 billion. The Catalan club also approved a budget for the 2022/23 season that includes an operating income cap of $1.2 billion. They even predict a profit of around $273 million for the current campaign.
Barcelona sold a large part of its television rights to support these financial gains. Global investment firm Sixth Street bought 10% of these rights in June, just before the end of the 2021/22 fiscal year. The company then bought an additional 15% the following month. Total revenue from the two deals was nearly $500 million.
Orpheus Media also bought two 24.5% stakes in Barca Studios this summer. The club reportedly made around $200 million from this deal.
Barcelona and the necessary benefits
Essentially, Barca had to make these deals in order to sign and register new players this season. The club spent a lot on Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Koundé. They also brought in four quality players on free transfers. Franck Kessié, Andreas Christensen, Héctor Bellerín and Marcos Alonso managed to sign for Barça without the club having to pay any fee. The club, however, has to pay these players a substantial salary.
✅ Budget 2022/23 approved by the Board
All the details ????https://t.co/25mqj6jvwf
– FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona) September 19, 2022
Although they have made huge profits to sign these players, LaLiga warned Barcelona to reduce expenses in the near future. This was mainly due to the fact that the money raised this summer came from one-off deals.
“The limit of Barcelona is [up to $656m] and they needed that full amount, that’s why they kept registering players at the last moment”, recently assured the president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas.
“Without him [sale of assets], it may not be as high next season. They may have to reduce their wage bill, sell players or even [sell more] active. I think [Barca’s vice president Eduard] Romeu has said they need him to be around $400-something million. But they know all about this, it will be hard for them to keep [the new limit] next season.”
PHOTO: IMAGO / Action Plus
