mdgoonah41 wrote:
i thought barcelona had like a billion dollars in debt even after messi left? they are going to lose dembele on a free after paying an astronomical sum for him
Both Barca and RM have around 1bn debt, but Barca's issues are/were with short term payments and deals needing to be refinanced when they didn't have any match day revenues, which is why they couldn't afford to give Messi a new deal. The money 'saved' from his wages and personal image rights gave them some room to breathe, but they still need to reduce their wage bill as well as needing to sell to buy. They have been looking to refinance to reduce annual debt payment, and are also looking to generate more commercial revenues as well as looking to sell players like Dembele.
The real kicker for them would be if the Spanish Govt revoked their status as being a trust (along with RM, Bilbao and Osasuna), and made them all pay tax. This would also impact their ability to generate revenues as they would also cease to be able to be used to write off revenues by investors as donations, as well as the clubs then having to pay tax on those revenues raised.
