Barcelona 'Aiming to Raise €60m' Through Player Sales by End of June to Balance Books
Barcelona have just over two weeks to raise €60m through player sales after a new report suggested they are aiming to balance the books for the 2018/19 season. That will ultimately help avoid possible trouble with UEFA and Financial Fair Play regulations in the future.
The campaign doesn't officially finish until the end of June and so if Barça can offload players before then, the money can be declared as income for this season, even if the transfer won't officially be registered with FIFA until the transfer window opens on 1st July.
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Philippe Coutinho is the Barça player most heavily linked with a move away, with Paris Saint-Germain seemingly the most plausible destination for the Brazilian. But that will be a complicated transfer to arrange and will therefore take time to complete.
As such, ESPN reports that Barça will look to raise the €60m by selling off fringe players. That could include the likes of Andre Gomes, who spent the season on loan at Everton and has been linked with both Tottenham and West Ham, as well as Denis Suarez, Rafinha and Jasper Cillessen. Malcom has also been linked with a move away from Camp Nou.
With FFP measuring losses over multiple years, there is no immediate suggestion that Barça failing to raise €60m this month would result in an investigation, but it would make balancing the books to avoid shortfalls even more important next season and the season after.
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Overall, it is believed that Barça will still have to raise significantly more funds this summer if they are to afford a number of potentially expensive signings in a squad rebuild.
A report back in April put that number at €300m, with the aforementioned Coutinho, Ivan Rakitic and Samuel Umtiti the players most heavily linked with Camp Nou exits.
Barcelona have already committed to the €86m signing of Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong and are chasing his equally expensive Ajax teammate Matthijs de Ligt. The Catalans missed out on Luka Jovic, who has joined Real Madrid, but still remain linked with Antoine Griezmann.
