Barcelona has accepted a UEFA sentence for violating financial Fair Play regulations. The European organ disagrees with the Catalan giants about the categorization of income about their notorious economic levers, but both parties settled for a punishment for the next two seasons.
President Joan Laporta held a third meeting with Aleksander Ceferin on Thursday and discussed Barcelona's potential punishment. The verdict was issued, while Barcelona was sitting next to Chelsea, Aston Villa and Olympique Lyon, who also received a fine for infringements.
The Blaugrana have accepted a fine of € 15 million as a starting point, according to Ben Jacobs, and from there, a series of provisions have agreed for the next two seasons, on which they will be assessed by the administrative body. If the Catalan giants do not reach those goals, UEFA will impose the full fine of € 60 million – the extra € 45 million is conditioned to achieve those goals.
It is not yet clear whether the penalties will end there. All four teams that are confronted with sanctions have accepted conditional or unconditional squadron instructions for the upcoming Champions League campaigns. These limitations limit the ability of a club to register new players in their A-list for European competition, so that the club is effectively left in violation with a shorter team.
If those limitations are conditional, the limitations will depend on those objectives in the next two seasons, but will be further imposed from next season. At the moment it is not yet clear what Barcelona is confronted with.
This is the latest development that questioning Barcelona's finances. Laporta has demanded a dramatic improvement for the past three years, but after a loss of € 91 million last year, a fine is now confronted with a fine due to the violation of FFP instructions. This follows on seeing the signing of Nico Williams slipping away because of the struggle to register players, a problem that the club has plagued the last four summers.