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October 9, 2024
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Barcelona’s financial turmoil deepens after £20m fine over agent payments


Barcelona have lost an appeal against a fine of €23 million (£20 million) from the Spanish tax authorities for historic payments to player agents – with the club, staggering under huge debts, claiming that the courts have treated them differently to rivals Real Madrid

This latest penalty for Barcelona is related to alleged income tax liabilities for payments to agents between January 2012 and June 2015. 

Real Madrid have successfully appealed a VAT case from Spain’s Central Economic Administrative Tribunal [TEAC] and also an income tax case relating to payments to those non-resident for tax.

The €6.4 million (£5.5 million) awarded to Real was part of more than €24.3 million (£20.75 million) in rebates added to the club’s revenue for the 2022-2023 financial year. Real still face an outstanding judgement by TEAC on income tax penalties between 2010 and 2014.

‌In a statement Barcelona said: “It comes as a surprise that the contentious … court has not considered recent jurisprudence of the Supreme Court on this matter from which certain other football clubs have been able to benefit in recent sentences on the same matter.” 

Barcelona went on to allege that “certain other clubs” had their appeal accepted on an “identical case” – although they did not mention Real by name.

The latest judgement for the Catalan club comes after they were fined €500,000 (£427,000) by Uefa over their financial fair play submission last year, with the expectation that they will fail Uefa’s new squad costs regulatory regime this year. 

This comes on top of extraordinary mounting debts, of around €1.5 billion (£1.28 billion) on accumulated operating costs over the years, and a similar amount committed to the Espai Barca project, the rebuilding of the Nou Camp.

Barcelona’s failure to get their income tax penalty overturned has prompted the club to say that they will now take the case to Spain’s Supreme Court.

The club said that they were not obliged to make the payment until the end of the case, and that they have made a relevant contingency in their most recent accounting. 

Barcelona sold almost €700 million (£598 million) of future revenues in the summer of 2022 to raise immediate funds. 

Those deals are accepted as legitimate revenue by La Liga which has its own similar financing arrangement in place for 18 of its clubs. 

The European governing body Uefa does not accept it as legitimate income.



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