September 29, (THEWILL) – Nasser Al-Khelaifi, Paris Saint-Germain’s club president, has criticised Barcelona, over legality in their summer transfer transactions.
Barça is trying to recover from a history of poor financial management and was pushed to selling off portions of their company to pay for summer recruits. In addition to other sales, club president, Joan Laporta, reached agreements to give up control of nearly half of Barça Licencing and Merchandising and 25% of their La Liga TV rights, sales the club called “economic levers.”
These actions helped Barça to meet the stringent financial regulations of Spanish football, while also spending almost £140 million on new transfers during the summer. And, as a club that bewailed their precarious financial circumstances, the plan has expectedly aroused the criticism of other clubs and supporters across Europe.
Al-Khelaifi criticised his European opponents and said UEFA will be looking into Barça’s activities: “Is this fair? No, it’s not fair… Is it legal? I’m not sure. If they allow them, others will do the same. UEFA of course have their own [financial] regulations. For sure they’re going to look at everything. The new financial sustainability rules are a positive development. But we need to be careful. Dangerous levels of debt and magical equity deals are not a sustainable path.”
These comments come despite the fact that PSG is also backed by questionable money as the state-run club is funded by the Qatar Sports Investments fund.
