The hanging game about the eligibility of the former Bayern professional Robert Lewandowski is over. On Friday evening, the Spanish league association LFP announced on its website that the Catalans’ top entry had been officially licensed as a new player by Barça. In addition to Lewandowski, other additions to Barça have also been registered: winger Raphinha, formerly of Leeds United, defender Franck Kessié, who joined Barcelona from AC Milan, and former Gladbacher Andreas Christensen (last Chelsea FC). Nothing stood in the way of her appearance in the season opener on Saturday against Rayo Vallecano.
According to SZ information, former Dortmund player Ousmane Dembélé is also eligible to play. He had to be re-registered by signing a new contract.
The registration of the additions was difficult because of Barça’s precarious financial situation. The traditional Catalan club announced on Friday that they had sold a further 100 million euros by selling rights to the audiovisual platform Barça Studios. In total, Barça has raised almost a billion euros in recent weeks through the sale of club shares. Barça has now sold about half of Barça Studios. In addition, 25 percent of the TV income for the next 25 years was pledged.
Despite these deals, the licensing of the accesses by the LFP was in question because Barça still have to service horrendous salary costs. They recently amounted to more than half a billion euros. The league association LFP sees Barça’s efforts so far as insufficient. Therefore, Jules Koundé, access from FV Sevilla, must continue to wait for the green light from the LFP. Barça is therefore trying by all means to sell Dutch international Frenkie de Jong. De Jong is one of the big earners at Barça. An agreement on a drastic salary cut is said to have been reached with another top earner, defender Gerard Piqué.
A few weeks ago, Lewandowski switched from Munich to Barcelona for more than 45 million euros. The transfer fee can increase to 50 million euros through bonus payments. According to information from the online magazine The Athletic Lewandowski consultants have been promised a commission of 10 million euros. According to official information, FC Barcelona was last indebted at 1.35 billion euros. The losses accumulated in the last two years and now offset were around half a billion euros.