Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi has criticized Barcelona’s economic leverage and confirmed that the European Football Association is investigating the club’s controversial dealings
Barcelona has come under constant scrutiny as football recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, with team boss Joan Laporta withdrawing a number of “leverages” in order to keep his team among the European elite while still abiding by La Liga’s strict regulations
The debt-laden Catalan club made a controversial decision to sell future TV rights and a large amount of digital content to investment funds
The financial moves of the Barcelona board of directors to pay 137 million pounds to a group of stars during the summer transfer window, which angered their rivals
Al-Khelaifi, whose state-run club is regularly criticized for its support by the Qatar Sports Investment Fund, is now condemning Barcelona and has announced that UEFA – which chairs its executive committee – will investigate their ongoing ploy
The Paris Saint-Germain president who is also the head of Qatar’s beIN media group, told Politico: “Is this fair? No, it’s not fair…is it legal? I’m not sure”
He added: “The same thing, UEFA of course has its own financial regulations, they will certainly look at everything”
Al-Khelaifi’s comments come on the heels of his veiled criticism of Barcelona during a conversation with the heads of major European clubs on Friday
“The new financial sustainability rules are a positive development, but we need to be careful, dangerous levels of debt and magic stock deals are not a sustainable path,” explained the increasingly influential Qatari billionaire
Barcelona did not respond to Al-Khelaifi’s comments, but UEFA issued a statement saying: “All clubs participating in UEFA club competitions are monitored in accordance with the rules of licensing and financial sustainability and decisions regarding compliance are made by the independent club financial watchdog (CFCB)”
Laporta was happy to shed a certain amount of light on Barcelona’s financial predicament over the summer and most notably told ESPN after the £42.5m signing of Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich: “We had to move quickly, the TV rights were sold, 25 per cent of them, and the This added significant revenue”
Adding in his previous statements: “The club is on its way to being healthy; The club is better financially with the money that comes in, and we were able to pay off 100 million euros of the balance that we got through Goldman Sachs”
And he concluded: “More than that, it must be said, the club is back to being economically sound, but we have to work hard to increase our profits, not from selling shares but not by profiting from them
