sport news Barcelona financial outlook is bleak as LaLiga gets tough and European Super ... trends now
Just when it seems Barcelona have hit rock bottom the ground beneath them gives way and down they go again.
The team might be top of LaLiga but the club's spectacular financial free-fall shows no sign of coming to an end and this week a corruption lawsuit against them dating back to before 2018 was filed.
It's a measure of their turmoil, that right now, is not their biggest problem.
The Spanish League president Javier Tebas said in London last week that as things stand the club would not be able to sign players this summer.
The club's president Joan Laporta continues to promise new recruits - a centre-back, right-back and forward, despite admitting there are problems.
Barcelona may currently top LaLiga but the club's problems off the pitch are mounting up
President Joan Laporta continues to promise summer signings but the margins are wafer thin
A one-season move away from the Nou Camp while it is redeveloped will cost the club £83m
He has to keep talking up the situation as best he can but things are likely to get worse before they get better, with three more sledgehammer blows about to fall.
This summer Barcelona will lose the use of their famous stadium for at least one season.
They expect to lose their Super League battle in the European courts too.
And perhaps worst of all they could lose their best young players if selling them represents the only way to fix their finances.
The wage bill is the biggest immediate problem. It currently stands at around 655million euros [£582m].
When LaLiga tells Barcelona at the end of this season what their 'maximum permitted squad spend' is, ahead of the summer transfer market, the figure it gives the club is likely to be just 450m euros [£400m].
In simple terms that means – either through slashing the wage bill or massively increasing revenue – the club needs to find around 200m euros [£178m] in the next four months.
The Super League is not going to save them and the temporary stadium move is the last thing they need. So much so that they have even considered the possibility of trying to delay it for a year.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas is in no mood to let Barcelona off the hook and made clear last week that, as it stands, they won't be able to sign anyone this summer
That lack of finance to strengthen the squad may lead to coach Xavi walking away
Real Madrid fans mock Laporta with fake Euro notes during the Copa del Rey Clasico last week
Xavi's team are due to kick-off next season in the humble, slightly decrepit surroundings of the city's Olympic Stadium while the Nou Camp is redeveloped.
The costs of rebuilding the Nou Camp will hurt. They have downscaled original plans and controversially chosen Turkish contractor Limak to carry out the work.
Rival Spanish constructors believe Limak's bid was the cheapest and that they won the tender because they agreed to stringent guarantees, regarding the work not going over estimate on price or timescale, guarantees considered unrealistic by other bidders.
Funding for the new stadium should be agreed this month and it will mean doubling the club's debt from 1.5 billion to 3 billion euros [£1.33bn to £2.66bn].
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have both been tasked by Barcelona to find the 1.5 billion euros worth of investment, to be paid back over the next 35 years.
The first team should be back in the Spotify Nou Camp by December 2024 with 70 per cent capacity. But the season they will have to spend at the 49,000 capacity Olympic Stadium will cost them 94m euros [£83.6m] of reduced match day revenue.
They have plans to try to offset some of those losses by selling off bits of the old stadium to supporters. They hope some fans will pay to have their old seats once they have been ripped out of the famous concrete arena.
Amid all the financial turmoil, Barcelona are on course to wrest the title from Real Madrid
Raphinha scores Barcelona's winning goal against Valencia in their latest LaLiga outing
Barcelona will also have to pay around 20m euros [£17.8m] to give their temporary new home the facelift it will need to meet UEFA standards.
Before they move to the Olympic Stadium they should have a definitive ruling from the European Court, which will almost certainly decree that the Super League founders CAN be punished by UEFA for trying to start a rival competition.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has clung to the Super League life raft since taking over the club presidency two years ago believing it would lead to a bumper 600m euros [£533m] television contract, just for the club, with UEFA, currently the 'inconvenient' middleman, cut out of the deal.
The expected court ruling will end all realistic hopes that the breakaway project has any future.
Laporta told Sportsmail last month that he was now hoping to 'sit around the table with UEFA' – it's a far cry from trying to overthrow them and a measure of how he is slowly resigning himself to the fact that this will not be Barcelona's salvation.
No Super League and an uncomfortable temporary move from the stadium will not necessarily put the brakes on Xavi's young but rapidly improving squad, currently sat nine points clear at the top of LaLiga.
The 99,000-capacity Spotify Nou Camp will be empty next season for rebuilding work
Barca will play their home matches at the Olympic Stadium, which has half the capacity
But if it means top players have to be sold, then he will suffer too.
Barcelona could lose sensational 18-year-old Spain midfielder Gavi on a free transfer in July if LaLiga successfully blocks their bid to take him off the apprentice's salary he's currently on and give him a senior professional's contract.
LaLiga blocked them registering his new deal earlier this year but Barcelona temporarily reversed the decision on appeal to a civil court.
LaLiga are not giving up and if they win the legal wrangle Gavi will be out of contract and free to leave for riches elsewhere should he wish.
He has shown no signs of wanting to leave but how patient will he be if Barcelona are blocked from giving him a proper deal?
The 19-year-old left back Alejandro Balde, and 23-year-old centre-back and player of the season Ronald Araujo are in a similar situation.
LaLiga argue that the new contracts proposed by Barcelona for these young players will send the wage bill shooting upwards once more – well beyond the squad spend limit they will be instructed to remain within at the end of this season.
There is concern young star Gavi will seek another opportunity elsewhere in the summer
Ronald Araujo is another top performer who may have to be sacrificed to raise funds
It is Barcelona's absolute priority now that these players are renewed. Contracts with Gavi and Araujo have been agreed, and Jorge Mendes is close to agreeing Balde's contract but unless the league let Barcelona
