Barcelona are just five days away from their opening match in La Liga this season, facing Getafe in the Coliseum Alfonso Perez. While no doubt many are looking forward to getting the season underway, it is also a deadline marked in red on the calendar for Barcelona.
Currently Barcelona only have 13 players registered, as none of their contract renewals during the last year have been officially registered with La Liga, and neither have the contracts of their new signings, Oriol Romeu, Inigo Martinez and Ilkay Gundogan.
The latter could prove the most problematic. Sport highlight that there is a clause in Gundogan’s contract that means if he is not registered in time for their first La Liga match, he is within his rights to leave the club on a free. They would also have to pay out his wages for the entire first season.
It is believed that Martinez has a clause which allows him to leave on loan if he is not registered, but they may have a little more time to work on that, as Martinez is out injured.
Barcelona believe that with the closing of another economic lever in the resale of 16% of Barca Studios (€65m), and the sale of Franck Kessie, they should create enough space in their salary limit to register all of their players.
Obviously, it would be disastrous for Barcelona on a series of levels if they lost Gundogan. However due to that clause, no doubt he will be the first to be registered. Jules Kounde missed the first two games of last season due to their struggle to register players, and thus it is not impossible that they are missing several players, but the seeming lack of urgency so far suggests that Barcelona are comfortable with their position.
