sport news PETE JENSON: Barcelona will look to build on their LaLiga triumph with a trio ... trends now
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Lionel Messi, Inaki Martinez and Ilkay Gundogan make up the holy trinity of free transfers that Barcelona want to build their summer around – one legend and two top internationals that will excite supporters and improve the quality of the team that has just won the league.
Making it happen will not be easy and depend largely on how much slack they are cut by La Liga and how successful their attempts at selling players are.
The club have to make up a £174million [€200m] deficit in order to move with freedom in the transfer market, free from the shackles of La Liga’s 40 per cent rule that will otherwise oblige them to spend only £35million [€40m] of every £100million they bring in by either increasing revenue or reducing costs.
The scrapping of in-house TV channel Barça TV saves them 12m euros a year and they announced this week that Ambilight TV will be their shirt sleeve sponsors for three years for £7m [€8m], £8.6m [€10m] and £10.5m [€12m].
The news comes in the same week that Jordi Alba has revealed he will leave at the end of this season saving Barcelona a sizeable chunk of the 36m euros they would have had to pay him in gross earnings and backdated salary from the pandemic. His severance has not been made public but it will only be a fraction of that sum due if he had stayed.
Lionel Messi will lead Barcelona's summer shortlist ahead of his potential PSG exit
Club president Joan Laporta will attempt to navigate the summer transfer market within Barcelona's financial constraints
They are crawling their way back towards solvency one cut at a time but the fact that they are trying to sell bits of the pitch and seats from the Camp Nou before it is renovated is a reminder of the desperation to raise money everywhere they can.
There have been claims from media closely related to the
