Barcelona suffer eight-figure loss despite Ilkay Gundogan exit and mass cost-cutting

As president Joan Laporta tries to steady Barcelona’s debts, a vast wage bill and setbacks with sale of Barça Vision are key issues

The Barcelona cost-cutting measures that saw Ilkay Gundogan leave this summer, as well as other recent major departures, means the club have reduced their wage bill from €670 million (£557 million) to €500 million (£415 million) – but even so it has announced losses of €91 million (£75 million).
Gundogan, a free agent last year, left Barcelona this summer to rejoin Manchester City, with the Catalan club unwilling to sustain his annual wages of around €16 million (£13.3 million) if they wanted to add new players. Barcelona’s vast wage bill is one of the key problems facing president Joan Laporta as he tries to steady a club with debts of around €3 billion (£2.49 billion) – which includes the financing of the new Nou Camp stadium.
Yet Barcelona have also admitted that the much-anticipated sale of subsidiary Barça Vision, previously Barça Studios, has not gone ahead as they had hoped – forcing a write-down of €141 million (£117 million) in the club’s assets. 
Initially valued at €400 million (£332 million), a deal to sell just less than half was explored separately with the Catalan businessman Jaume Roures, the German football financiers Libero and Socios, the fan engagement app. In the end, the full valuation of the stake was never realised.
The disclosures were made in a taster of the club’s next financial results, announcing record merchandising and sponsorship revenue – but warning that the €141 million write-down had wiped out a small €12 million (£10 million) operating profit.
In a statement the club said that Barça Vision – which sits in the holding company Bridgeburg Invest – had been the subject of “non-payment by some of the participating investors”. 
Nevertheless, the club has declined to write down the book value of its own share in the business, around €200 million (£166 million), which will raise eyebrows among other competitors making economies to comply with financial controls.
Barcelona said in a statement: “The club believes there are sufficient grounds for the current valuation of the [Barça Vision] company and remains confident in its future viability and capacities, with a business plan in place that should generate recurring revenue in the near future.”
The club said that player sales has earned it around €80 million (£66.5 million); including the €6 million (£5 million) Chelsea spent on teenage striker Marc Guiu and the €17 million (£14 million) Crystal Palace paid for defender Chadi Riad. The bulk of its income came from the sale of Ousmane Dembélé for around €50 million (£41.5 million) to Paris St- Germain, as well as the sales of Franck Kessie, Nico González and Abde Ezzalzouli.
The club’s academy continues to be a reliable production line for talent, with Lamine Yamal and Gavi both members of the victorious Spain squad at Euro 2024. 
Gundogan left this summer as the club tried to find room for another Euro 2024 winner, Dani Olmo, from RB Leipzig, in its Liga-permitted salary budget. A much-trailed move for another Euro 2024 winner, Nico Williams, of Athletic of Bilbao, never went ahead.