In the last couple of seasons Spanish giants Real Madrid and Barcelona have splashed money on players and wages like they had their own euro printing press. But it seems that all that spending has caught up with Barcelona.
In an amazing radio interview today, new Barcelona president Sandro Rosell stunned listeners in a radio interview this morning by revealing the club were seeking a 150 million euros loan to cover ‘short-term liquidity’ problems.
And an indication of Barca’s cash flow problems was that they sold Dmytro Chygrynskiy back to Shakhtar Donetsk for £12.5m, taking a near-£10m hit on the defender that they bought just 12 months ago. When that sort of sale happens, it usually means that Barca were due to make a payment to Shakhtar for the player and could not. Thus they sold him back so they they could wipe out the debt.
Barca have also sold Yaya Toure to Manchester City for £24m, have released Thierry Henry and have flogged Zlatan Ibrahimovic to every bog club in Europe, with no takers.
Another strain on Barca’s finances is that unlike in other European leagues, Spain pays it players once a year. So Barca needs to come up with over 100 million euros to pay its players next month.
Barca have spent the summer tapping up Arsenal’s Cesc Fabregas and I wondered if there cash flow problems will force them to cool their interest in the Arsenal captain?
When Manchester United sold Ronaldo to Real Madrid last summer, they required that Real Madrid pay the whole 80 million euros transfer fee up front. At the moment it does not look like Barcelona could do a similar deal for Fabregas.
photo credit: Zeigen_was