BARCELONA
Barcelona's great challenge is to "reduce salary spend by €18m"
The club will increase their budget to over one billion euro but they have to reduce their wage bill by €18 million according to the club's CEO.
Barcelona's biggest challenge is to reduce their overall salary spend ahead of next season according to the club's CEO.
Oscar Grau explained that they will have a budget of over €1 billion with an increase of 6% from last season. Ahead of the coming season though, Grau says their big challenge is to "reduce the wage bill by €18 million".
The current wage bill is €525 million, which is 55% of the total expenses. If you add in the amortization to that it rises to 68% and a total of €671 million. These figures were made public by the CEO during the financial reporting following the 2018-19 season along with club treasurer, Enrique Tombas.
Over the last four years, income has risen steadily by 13% on average annually. The club's income in 2014-15 was €608 million and that is now €990 million. The treasurer says the situation is "very comfortable and healthy". That is why the budget for next year will be over €1 billion, a figure that puts Barcelona "ahead of NBA and NFL teams."
Expenses have also shot up to €973 million from €882 last season, rising by 10% over the season. The debt, which Tombas says is "perfectly sustainable" is €217 million. If you take away the Espai Barça debt from that, it drops to €137 million. "The ETIBA ration (Earnings before interest, taxes, and amortization) compared to other entertainment companies that can be one billion, is just 18% of that, which is spectacular," says Tombas.
As for player sales, Barcelona brought in €114 million, which was down from the year before, which was aided by the world record transfer fee of Neymar to Paris Saint Germain.