Javier Tebas:
"Barcelona have exceeded their wage cap. I hope they can keep Messi, but to do so, they will have to make cuts elsewhere."
"Of the ?700m in losses across LaLiga, half of it is for Barcelona. There are other big clubs that have made a bigger effort to avoid it. Real Madrid have made a commendable effort to ensure their losses aren't the same as Barcelona, who take the trophy for losses."
My take. Many journalists in Catalonia are beginning to realize that renewing Messi will not be easy in terms of accounting.
- Barcelona had a Salary Expense of ? 386.6M as of 06/30/2020.
And that figure was achieved after deferring 180M of salaries to the next few years, the majority for this new season 21/22. Operation carried out by Bartomeu to save his budget without thinking about what may happen in the coming years.
- La Liga has limited Barcelona's salary spending to ? 347m on 21/22. And we have signed Eric, Aguero, Emerson and Depay.
- By LFP regulation, for every ? 10M that we reduce, we can ONLY use ? 2.5M in salaries per year without complying with the financial far play. 25%
Accountingly, Messi's renewal is counted as a new signing. Messi charges 138M gross.
With this 1/4 LFP rule, Messi's salary would have to go from 138M gross to 34.5M gross (about 18M net).
The rumors were that he will collect 30M net for 4 years. And we have to count the salaries of Memphis, Aguero, Eric Garcia and Emerson, which should be in total between 15-20M net.
We already have a gap of about 35M net (about 60M gross) that we have to free. For example, to reach that figure, we already need to get rid of Dembele, Coutinho, Roberto and Pjanic without paying them any salary. Impossible.