Gareth Bale finds the best and unique way to wind up Real Madrid FC and their fanbase. 
Apparently, his Spanish is very, very good.
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Hopefully he keeps it up and only speaks in Spanish while in the US.
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Barcelona have released their official accounts - they owe 19 clubs a total of €126m for outstanding payments on transfers.
The largest sum is the €29m they must pay Liverpool for the transfer of Philippe Coutinho.
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I thought that was all settled 
We sold our part of the deal to a third party. So Barca may still have a portion of the deal on their books, but we’ve been paid out on it as much as we’re going to be.
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What are they paying their players with? Peanuts?
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Barca were actually profitable last year for the first time in years. Their league imposed spending limits are because 1) there is a 3 year rolling reporting period and their prior years put them under a big rock, and 2) the absolute debt is taken into account.
Looks like Barca and Dembele have agreed two more years together after his contract expired.
I guess with closing in on Raphinha, they want to have 4 wingers to pick from; Raphinha, Torres, Dembele and Fati.
With Lewandowski, I guess they want to have Lewa starting and Auba being backup. Remains to be seen what happens with Depay, who has a year left.
4 CB’s should be; Araujo, Pique, Garcia and Christensen. They will probably want to find new solutions for Mingueza and Umtiti.
They’re a little bit light at full backs; Dest is questionable how much they believe in him, Alba is still there and quality, question remains if Roberto stays and if he provides backup at RB. Could bring someone in to help them out.
In midfield the certainities are Busquets, Kessie, Pedri, Gavi and Gonzalez. We’ll see what happens with Frenkie if he leaves. 5 CM’s if he leaves, 6 if he stays.
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Nothing like the squad they had 10 years ago but this Barca side should be competing with Madrid next season.
We should have beaten those silly white cunts in the CL final. Still pissed at that.
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It’s a pretty strong and exciting squad, especially in midfield and up front.
I thought Mingueza did well for them in Koeman’s back three system, looked like he could be a solid squad player for them. But now Xavi has told him and a few others they can find new clubs. Umtiti, Puig, Braithwaite… and I think one or two more, can’t remember.
At full back there’s been a lot of talk about Azpilicueta and Alonso from Chelsea, so we’ll see what happens there.
I really like their midfield options, even more if Frenkie stays. If he doesn’t, I guess they’ll need a replacement. Kessie seems like a Wijnaldum alternative, get some physicality into their midfield. Nico Gonzalez was looking to go out on loan for regular game time, but apparently Xavi said no, and wants him to stay and learn the DM role.
They hope(d) to find a buyer for Neto (perhaps replacing him with a cheaper/homegrown backup?), but nothing so far. Umtiti’s been linked with a move to Rennes. Like you say, there’s Puig, Braithwaite, also Pjanic (two years left on his deal) as well.
Currently, they’re on a £30m net spend. Romano says that at the moment, Barca and United are in contact, but Frenkie himself still says he wants to stay. If he goes and they bring Lewa in, we’ll see what else can they do at full back and in midfield.
How are Barca in the “can’t register” players situation again? I thought they had sold 10% of something for a shitload of money. I was hoping they had enough money to lure Silva away from city.
Based on the last round of figures their provisional spending cap is negative. Once a club is already committed to spending more in the coming year than the cap affords them there are loopholes they have to jump through to take on new financial commitments (which includes extending an out of contract player, hence the Messi shitshow last summer). The main loop hole is to have cut $4 for every new $1 they are committing to spend in the coming year.
However, these figures are provisional and a new round of calculations will be made before the season starts, once that will take into account the new tv money conract. There is an expectation that will get them close enough to parity that with some reasonable cost cutting (players like Lenglet and Umtiti) they will out from under the 4 to 1 rule and will be able to register all their new players.
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How are Barca signing player after player for big amount too when they are supposed to be tightening their purses. Almost made us feel like the rest of clubs are feeding on scraps when a supposed financially critical club is spending money this way.
They’ve now agreed deal with Lewandowski for £42m despite being skint, can’t register him, need to pay de jong his £17m and needing to shift 7 players.
How can that even be allowed.
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its almost as if they know that la liga is not la liga without barca…
It’s pure corruption. It is outrageous what Barca are doing. So many things wrong it’s difficult to pick just one or two but what they’re doing to de Jong is particularly galling.
Fascinating read Swiss Ramble just now posted, worth the time.
https://twitter.com/swissramble/status/1548917012021145606?s=21&t=kFaN89eftijTDK15J3AQMg
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In May a court found Santi Mini guilty of sexual assault, a verdict that sees him facing 4 years in jail. Celta Vigo immediately cut him and initiated other disciplinary measures (presumably reclaiming some sort of payments already paid). The player is appealing the ruling and has seemingly forced Celta to reinstate him via his lawyers pending the appeal decision 
I would not call it corruption. La Liga clearly isn’t particularly pleased with Barca finding these loopholes, it doesn’t violate current UEFA regulations. I genuinely think the people who wrote the La Liga regulations never envisioned a club not immediately trying to get out of the constraint zone. The only accommodation that La Liga has provided is a reduction from 4:1 to 3:1 across the whole league, and it isn’t at all clear that that was intended to help Barca’s situation.
What they are doing is out and out madness. If they sell off 15% of their next 25 years TV revenue (ex. CL) to finance player assets (transfers and wages) with extremely uncertain sell-on value for a SINGLE season, they will have crippled themselves for a generation. It would be really hard to write a set of rules to cover that sort of irresponsibility.
It is looking more and more that the ESL idea had an interesting core, but the underlying motivation for Juventus and Barcelona in particular was sheer desperation. Anything short of massive growth leaves them both in real trouble.
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