Departure on loan from Philippe Coutinho to Aston Villa has downloaded the salary backpack from FC Barcelona, but not enough to be able to enroll Ferran Torres and LaLiga. Matthew German, the club’s sporting director, hoped to make room for him before this Sunday, but unless he closes some more sale or assignment at the last minute, he will not be able to fulfill his purpose.
The reality is that despite the departure of the Brazilian, the footballer with the highest payroll in the first team, Barça still does not have a sufficient salary margin, the so-called Financial Fair Play required by LaLiga, so that Torres is registered and can play (although he could not do it yet because he tested positive right in the final stretch of the recovery from his injury).
Dest, De Jong, Umtiti …
Mateu Alemany works with several cases to generate the margin to register Torres and perhaps, with good luck, Álvaro Morata. On the one hand, try the downward renewals of Ousmane Dembele (unsuccessfully) and Sergi Roberto, with which the salary cost of each player per season would be extended by several years; on the other, it looks for teams that want to receive the chips (or part of them) from Umtiti, Luuk de Jong, Demir and Dest, and that these, of course, want to go, because the last word is always from the players.
Now, why does Barça still not have a salary margin to register Torres despite the long-awaited departure of a record as high as Coutinho’s? It should be explained first that LaLiga dictates the salary limit of each club based on income and non-sports expenses. How much do you earn? This. Well, subtract non-sports expenses. What you get is what you can use in the salaries of your players, first coach, assistant coach and physical trainers of the first team.
The UEFA use another scale: you can spend 70% of your budget on tokens, although the European body is showing extremely lax in these times of pandemic, and if not, see the case of the PSG.
In the case of LaLiga and Barça, the difference between income and non-sports salaries shows a balance of 97 million. However, according to the budget presented to the members in the Assembly, the salary item still amounts to 470 million, despite having got rid of the enormous salaries of Messi and Griezmann, or the reduction applied to captains, including Gerard Piqué, who, as is known, demonstrated it this Friday in an impudent way.
The 1×4 and 1×2 rule
Despite the gap (470 versus 97), Barça can still register players. Why? LaLiga includes the option of the so-called 1×4 rule, that is, for every four euros saved you can spend one. An exception for those clubs that start the season with the salary limit exceeded. There is also the option to go from 1×4 to 1×2 (for every two euros saved, one can be spent) in those cases where the player’s cost exceeds 5% of the club’s salary bill.
The 1×2 rule can be applied with Coutinho, whose record is around 16 million euros gross per season, variable on the sidelines, which would be about 8 net. Aston Villa initially assumes half the annual record for the transfer, that is, eight million gross.
Backpack with deficit
To register Torres you have to look at the cost for the club in terms of token and amortization. The Barça would have promised to pay to Manchester City 55 million and the player’s contract is until 2027 at a rate of approximately five million per season.
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To set your cost for the remainder of the season, you have to divide both concepts: amortization (between 5.5 years) and record (when you arrive in January, Barça will only pay you half). It throws 2.5 million for each concept, five in total. If with Coutinho some four million have been released, Barça still has a deficit in the backpack of one million, more or less. Little is missing, but still missing.
Between Umtiti, Demir, De Jong and Dest the solution must come in view of the fact that with Dembele the negotiations have been stalled by the exorbitant claims of his agent. Alemany has the entire month of January, which is what the winter transfer window will be open, to modify the squad.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com