Coronavirus hurts football a lot. The interruption – definitive in France but always provisional elsewhere – of the competitions has catastrophic financial consequences for the clubs of the Old Continent. Some have had to take drastic measures. In Spain, partial unemployment has been used in particular. In total, eight La Liga clubs have used this process to limit breakage: FC Barcelona, Atlético, Valence, Alavés, Sevilla, Espanyol, Osasuna and Granada.
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These eight clubs therefore received public money to pay the salaries of their employees. And inevitably, the Spanish government and the tax authorities will be very careful about how these teams will manage their finances this summer according to the daily AS. “The eight clubs which have used short-time working will not be able to recruit freely because they have used state aid”, assures the newspaper. The Spanish authorities therefore want to ensure that the public money which has benefited from these training courses is entirely intended for the salaries of employees and not for transfer operations.
Government to hunt clubs
In addition to ensuring that the clubs that used this partial unemployment did so because they really needed it, and not just to save money. For the authorities, it is out of the question to see clubs that have been entitled to aid spend millions and millions on the transfer window. The expenses incurred by the clubs this summer will therefore be inspected and taxed by the Ministry of Labor and the tax authorities. On the La Liga side, we are aware that this situation will further limit the possibilities of clubs in the transfer window.
This should further complicate certain substantial operations that FC Barcelona was preparing to carry out, ready for anything for Lautaro Martinez and Neymar in particular. Suffice to say that the Barcelonians will not have the right to the slightest misstep and the slightest euro spent in a dubious manner, under penalty of sanctions from the Spanish government. A new puzzle for Josep Maria Bartomeu and Eric Abidal, who wonder how they will be able to strengthen the Barcelona workforce this summer … A situation that could well suit Real Madrid, which has managed to find an agreement with its players so that part of their salary is intended for the emoluments of the many employees of the club and can therefore freely recruit.
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