🗞️Today's front pages: Rashford steals the spotlight this Monday
The week starts with important news for Barça with the arrival of Marcus Rashford. The Englishman is already in the city and is the big name of the day in the press.Diario MARCA
Diario AS
Mundo Deportivo
Diario SPORT
Superdeporte
Estadio Deportivo
L'Esportiu
This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
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Barcelona were willing to trigger Williams' €58million (£50.3m) release clause to bring him in from Athletic, and key personal terms were verbally agreed between the club and Williams. But Williams wanted an exit clause inserted into the deal in case they could not register him with La Liga, having watched from the outside in previous summers when there had been registration drama with Olmo, his Spain team-mate, and Inigo Martinez, a former Athletic defender. Barcelona's sporting director Deco would not agree to this clause and Williams decided against the move, instead signing a new long-term deal at Athletic. Barcelona have been busy working on exits for numerous squad members this summer. La Masia-developed left-back Alex Valle was sold to Como for €6m, and young attacking midfielder Pablo Torre to Mallorca for €5m. French defender Clement Lenglet left for Atletico Madrid on a free transfer, and one-time teen sensation Ansu Fati was loaned to Monaco. Advertisement Deco is still working on other potential exits — the most important for Barca would be persuading goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen to leave as the German is one of the club's biggest earners. If Ter Stegen can be convinced (though his camp insists he is staying), then Garcia and Szczesny would likely be first in the queue to be registered with La Liga, as Flick would need two trusted senior goalkeepers in his squad. Ter Stegen's situation is complicated by the player being owed a significant sum by Barcelona over the next three years after deferring his salary in previous years. That figure would not be sufficiently compensated by any potential signing-on fee at a new club if he were to leave on a free transfer. Barcelona are open to a mutual termination of his contract, but there has been no progress in those discussions. Ter Stegen is also currently sidelined by a back injury, which adds uncertainty to his situation. Others who could leave in the coming weeks include Denmark defender Andreas Christensen, unwanted backup goalkeeper Inaki Pena, holding midfielder Oriol Romeu and last summer's attacking signing Victor. Absolutely. Under La Liga's rules, the 'amortisation' (transfer fee divided by years of contract) of any new signing is counted towards a season's budget limit. Barcelona not paying United any loan fee is also helpful, as that outlay would also have to be fitted under the budget limit. Barcelona are covering the entirety of Rashford's wages but sources close to the deal, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, have told The Athletic that Rashford has taken a pay cut to the effect of between 15 per cent and 25 per cent depending on factors including bonuses. He was on €19.5m a year before tax at Manchester United (including bonuses), and the pay cut puts his gross salary at Barcelona at about €14m a year (before bonuses). This would still make him one of the biggest earners at the club alongside the likes of Lamine Yamal and Robert Lewandowski. That salary means Barcelona need space of around €28m euros, including taxes. Players who are not registered with La Liga are not able to play for Barcelona in any competition — not the domestic league, Copa del Rey or Champions League. The risk of having to sit out a full season was a big reason why Williams asked for such strong guarantees from Barcelona and then decided to stay at Athletic when they were not forthcoming. Barcelona cannot send Rashford on loan to another club — to cover the first half of the season, for instance — without first having registered him with La Liga. In December, the Barcelona board decided to sell 25 years of future income from 475 VIP boxes at the Camp Nou, which is currently under reconstruction. That was their latest 'financial lever', a way of advancing future revenues. This was to bring in €100m from two different investors: €70m from New Era Visionary Group (NEVG), which is owned by Moldovan businessman Ruslan Birladeanu, and €30m from the Qatari-backed Forta Advisors Limited. La Liga have not received any details from Barcelona's auditors about this €100m and have therefore not included it within any salary limit calculations (it was intervention from the Spanish government which allowed Olmo and Victor to play for the team in the second half of last season). The club's president Joan Laporta has continued to maintain that the €100m is crucial in the club returning to a '1:1' situation with La Liga, whereby they can then spend a euro for every euro they raise — thereby making it much easier to register players. Advertisement Barcelona have yet to receive all of the €100m for those VIP seats, with sources speaking on condition of anonymity telling The Athletic that NEVG have only paid €28m of their promised €70m so far. Payment of that remaining €42m from NEVG could conceivably help Barcelona to register new players this summer — if they get the green light from La Liga. The club are already feeling the effects of past summers of lever pulling — most obviously, 25 per cent of their La Liga TV income (approx €40m) is being paid to U.S. financiers Sixth Street each season until 2047. Troubles with the 'Barca Studios/Barca Media/Barca Vision' lever continue to be felt. The team's 2024-25 salary budget was lowered by La Liga when previous auditors Grant Thornton mandated a €141m loss in the club's previous year's accounts due to Barca Vision. It remains to be seen whether Crowe, the current auditors, will also require a further 'write-down' in Barca Vision's accounting value for their 2024-25 accounts, which would have a further impact on the salary budget for next season. There remains an option for Barca to sell future revenues from more VIP seats at their new stadium, using the Personal Seat License (PSL) business model introduced last winter. Like the other levers, this could raise money immediately to register signings (including Rashford) while limiting the club's revenues and financial scope far into the future. Barca have also been looking to raise more commercial revenue and Reuters have reported they have agreed a training-kit deal with the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, which will bring in between €10m and €11.5m annually over the next four seasons. The new contract signed this summer with teenage superstar Yamal will also be taken into account by La Liga's financial team. As an existing player, Yamal is automatically registered, but his bumper salary means there is less space to fit in others. Some have floated the idea that Ter Stegen could undergo an operation to fix a long-standing back injury and that would allow Barca to use 80 per cent of his salary to register one other player for at least the first half of the 2025-26 season. This is what happened last August when Christensen was injured in the opening game of La Liga, which Barca took advantage of to register Olmo to play until December. The negative flipside of that is that most of Christensen's wages from last season will now be subtracted from the 2025-26 budget — meaning they have less space to register new players now. The biggest priorities of Barcelona's summer are covered with Rashford coming in as the new attacking reinforcement and the arrival of goalkeeper Garcia earlier in the summer. Different names are still going to do the rounds, especially in local media, but club sources insist Barcelona's focus will now be on securing departures so that current players can be registered. Experience tells us that these things tend to go right down to the line, with players not yet registered when the new La Liga season starts (Barcelona kick off at Mallorca on August 16), and then a race against time for a solution before the transfer window ends on Monday, September 1. More debate in public and private between Barcelona and La Liga over the interpretation of the salary limit rules looks quite likely, too. That will not be easy, given that relations were not good even before the row over Olmo's registration and the eventual involvement of the Spanish government. As things stand, Rashford can sign a contract to go on loan to Barcelona for the 2025-26 campaign, but unless things change, he cannot be registered to play for the Catalan club. (Additional contributor: Pol Ballus) (David S. Bustamante/Soccrates/Getty Images)
