Barcelona still have just 13 players registered with La Liga, as they struggle to find the space in their salary limit to include new signings and the players that have signed new deals. One of those is no longer training with the side, ahead of a proposed move.
The Blaugrana have been unofficially telling journalists close to Camp Nou that they are ‘calm’ about the situation, and believe that with three steps, Xavi Hernandez will have all of his squad available by the time they take to the pitch to face Getafe on Sunday night.
The first of those steps was to sell Franck Kessie to Saudi Arabian side Al Ahli. That deal netted the club €12.5m, and saved them a good deal of money on his salary it is thoughht that Barcelona will recoup between €8-10m in salary space.
The second step is to push through Ousmane Dembele’s move to Paris Saint-Germain. The French winger has agreed a deal with PSG, and they have activated his €50m release clause, but Barcelona are still haggling with his agent Moussa Sissoko over the amount that each party should receive from that €50m.
The third step, and perhaps the trickiest at this point, is closing a deal for the re-sale of 16% of Barca Studios to the tune of €60m to a German investment firm, as per MD. Both Socios and Orpheus Media have agreed to cede part of their ownership in their subsidiary, and with all three of thee moves, the Blaugrana could register all of their players.
The flipside is that if any of these deals, but in particular the sale of Barca Studios, were to collapse, it would necessitate more exits from the Barcelona squad. The Catalan daily note Clement Lenglet (€16m), Sergino Dest (€5m) and Ansu Fati (€12m) as the potential players to leave, and Barcelona could save 50% of their salary, plus 20% of any transfer fee in terms of any salary limit. In total, if all three were to leave, the Blaugrana would save a minimum of €16.5m in their salary limit.
That said, it seems even more unlikely that those deals occur before Sunday, and still less so before the three steps mentioned above. It is becoming a common theme of Barcelona’s summer that they are struggling to register players, although this time round they have been joined by various other clubs in La Liga.
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