Barcelona are facing a monumental battle to achieve the results they want in the transfer market and they are fighting on several fronts.
One of the long-running war of words the club is waging is with La Liga President Javier Tebas. The Catalan club are limited by their ability to register players as a result of their losses over recent seasons, which has significantly reduced their wage cap. In fact, Barcelona are not currently able to meet the restrictions, meaning they are only allowed to bring in players for 25% of the value of their savings.
The club have been critical of this on multiple occasions and one of the leading voices on the matter has been Eduard Romeu, who is Vice-President of the Finance Department at Barcelona.
Once again he came out in criticism of La Liga, stating that it was bizarre that La Liga allowed Barcelona into such a poor financial situation before sanctioning them. It’s important to note that Barcelona were under the leadership of Josep Maria Bartomeu up until Joan Laporta came into power, inheriting the poor financial situation.
Yet Tebas is having none of it. He once again responded with a tweet to Romeu.
“We have already explained the situation in detail to Mr. Romeu. Either he hasn’t understood a thing or it’s more profitable and populist to call out La Liga as a trump card in every statement.”
Al Sr. Romeu del @FCBarcelona ya le hemos explicado muchas veces y en detalle la situación. O no se ha enterado de nada, o le resulta más rentable y populista señalar a @LaLiga como comodín en cualquier declaración. https://t.co/wcBKMVWPEO
— Javier Tebas Medrano (@Tebasjavier) June 3, 2022
He also references a statement made by La Liga in October of 2021 as noted by Marca, which states that Barcelona were following the rules up until last summer and that La Liga could not have acted in any other way.
One way or another Barcelona must find a way to sign players this summer, but it seems unlikely that they will force Tebas and La Liga into a relaxation of the rules. Spain’s salary rules are notably stricter than other leagues, but equally Barcelona are the only club struggling to this degree with those rules.