An embargo on participating in next season’s UEFA Champions League will leave another big gap in Barcelona already shaky financial state in addition to threatening the club’s muscle to bring in new funding.
Barcelona are hoping that UEFA will keep to the side of caution when they decide whether or not to banish the side out of next season’s competition.
UEFA are looking at the possibility of the Blaugrana side being freed in Spain and then suing the game’s governing body for revenues lost.
Despite not qualifying out of the group stage of the UEFA Champions League this campaign, Barcelona still scooped around £70 million for just playing in Europe.
Next season, they would achieve more than what they did this term. They are expected to earn something close to £120 million.
That amount would have to be excluded from next year’s expected revenue if they won’t be participating in the UEFA Champions League for a season.
The shrink in income would imply that they would be instructed by La Liga to fork out even less on their team, making it more strenuous to register the new deals of Gavi, Alejandro Balde and Ronald Araujo.
By the end of the upcoming week, Barcelona would be expecting to finalize the £1.5 billion borrowing plan that many of the world’s biggest banks have been overseeing in their interest.
The Spanish giants have already been slammed by La Liga tweaking the rules on what percentage of money gathered by selling off future earnings of the team can be spent on the team.
Barcelona rented 49% of subsequent TV rights alongside 49% of the Barcelona studios to investors in the summer of 2022.
The club was also looking to replicate same with the team’s merchandising arm this year but La Liga have told them only five percent of money garnered in that manner can be channeled towards accumulating team expenditure.
Barcelona are hoping for the best
Barcelona are hanging on the hope that UEFA would hesitate from slamming an embargo, in case indictments in Spain are later dropped or if Barcelona win this battle.
This would leave them open to sort for damages from the governing body of European football, UEFA due to lost income.
The court case in Spain is likely to continue for several years with the prosecutor needing proof that matches were fixed.
Any decision by UEFA would have to come before the commencement of the next campaign as their penal code implies that they would only have to show “an attempt to influence results”.
If the decision by UEFA that is anticipated to be made in July goes against the Spanish club, they would have to make an appeal to UEFA and afterwards to the Court of Arbitration in Sport.
