Barcelona puts pressure on La Liga over new player registrations

FC Barcelona are just days away from the official start of their 2022/23 La Liga season. The Catalans will host Rayo Vallecano at the Spotify Camp Nou this Saturday, and they are confident that La Liga authorities will allow them to register their new signings and renewals before that match.

It was widely reported over the weekend that there had been some discrepancy in the calculations between the club and the league when it came to the amount of money that was raised after the sale of certain assets. However, Marca reports that Barcelona still think that their calculations are correct, and that they had done enough to be allowed to register a total of five summer signings plus three contract renewals.

The club sold the naming rights to the Camp Nou to streaming giant Spotify, and later sold TV rights as well as stakes to their media production arm, Barca Studios. Those deals raised approximately 760 million euros, which they think should be sufficient to satisfy financial fair play requirements.

As of now, new signings Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde, Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen and Raphinha have not been registered along with Ousmane Dembele, Sergi Roberto and Gavi, who had just signed contract renewals.

It is believed that the Blaugrana are prepared with a contingency plan, one that involves the sale of another 24.5% of Barca Studios after having already sold 25%. This will bring in an additional 100 million euros, which should be enough to solve the player registration issue.

They are also confident that they do not even need to force further pay cuts from the club's existing high earners such as captains Gerard Pique and Sergio Busquets. Furthermore, they think that the fourth financial lever will allow them to move forward without having to force the exits of Frenkie de Jong and Memphis Depay among others.

It remains to be seen what La Liga will do, and if Barcelona will be able to pull off becoming one of the summer's biggest spenders despite having been 1.3 billion euros in debt.