La Liga giants Barcelona have been banned by La Liga from signing players in the summer unless they can raise the capital required to do so.
According to La Liga chief Javier Tebas, the Catalan side have been informed that they must raise £178 million from selling current players if they want to enter the transfer market this summer.
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Despite cutting their wage bill this season and sending many players on loan, Barcelona aren’t financially equipped to register new players.
“As of today, Barcelona doesn’t have any room in its budget to spend in the upcoming transfer window,” Javier Tebas said on Thursday in London, at the Financial Times’ Business of Football summit.
“Barcelona has been involved in questionable behaviour which has had an impact on LaLiga and we are acting accordingly. We have ruled that they can no longer sign more players.
“They sold off £620m (€700m) in TV rights and tried to find different ways to solve the situation, but they won’t be able to do that next season. We have strict economic controls. At the end of each window, we tell all the clubs in La Liga what they can spend.
“In the case of Barcelona, they have to drop from spending on wages and transfers from £532m to £399m (€650m to €450m), so it’s a budget of minus £177m (€200m).
“They have to reduce their investment in players and we have encouraged them to sell players because, for every amount they raise in sales, they can spend 40 per cent of that.”
