In a crunch Extraordinary General Meeting which was held yesterday, the Barcelona hierarchy has voted in favour of two economic levers which would help the club navigate its current financial struggles.
The first measure to sell 49.9% of ‘Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising’ received an approval rate of 88%, while the other proposal to sell a quarter of future television rights income over the next 25 years to investors was supported by 87% of the Blaugrana board members.
Before the votes were cast, Barcelona president Joan Laporta likened the team’s current struggles to ‘a Formula 1 car with no fuel and a seized-up engine’ and stressed the need for certain measures to be urgently taken to keep the La Liga giants competing at the highest level.
As revealed by Laporta, a windfall between €600million-700million could be generated from both deals and that would give Xavi Hernandez’s men more leeway to be fully active in the transfer market once again.
In the wake of that, Barcelona’s pursuit of Robert Lewandowski has received a huge boost as the La Liga giants are reportedly plotting a fresh €50m offer for the Poland international, who is determined to leave Bayern Munich this summer.
New arrivals such as Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie can also be registered with relative ease, while Gavi’s contract extension process is now expected to be completed in the coming days.
Meanwhile, Manchester United’s plans to acquire the services of Frenkie de Jong may have been dealt a huge blow with Barcelona no longer needing to sell the midfielder in an attempt to balance the books.
This could force the Red Devils to look elsewhere in their search for reinforcement in the centre of the pitch and securing a move for the already-linked Ruben Neves would be a good way to go.
