FC Barcelona and fair play: €95M of non-registerable wage bill, what does it really mean?

The head of professional sports at FC Barcelona, Xavier O'Callaghan, offered a press conference to provide greater clarity regarding the issue of financial fair play in the different sections of the Blaugrana team. Also present at the event were other personalities related to different sections of the club, such as:

1. Marc Vivés: technical secretary of the women's team
2. Mario Fernández: technical secretary of the basketball team
3. Jordi Torras: technical secretary of the futsal team
4. Gaby Cairo: technical secretary of the roller hockey team
5. Miquel Camps: head of the club's amateur teams area

Firstly, O'Callaghan wanted to emphasize that, as a multi-sports club—managing various disciplines—the regulation imposed by LaLiga in budgetary matters not only affects the first football team, but also "the entire set of sports sections and structures of the entity".

LaLiga and economic control in all Barcelona sections

The Catalan manager explained that each season the league calculates based on projected income and expenses, thus establishing the registerable limit for the sports area. "It must be understood that the wage bill is part of the budget, it is not exactly the same," he noted.

In this context, LaLiga distinguishes between the expenses of the first team and those it calls non-registerable, such as:

1. Salaries of professional sections
2. Amateur sports
3. Coaches of youth categories
4. Management of the Barça Academy

At this point, FC Barcelona revealed that for the 2025/26 season it will have a non-registerable wage bill of €95M (€4M higher than in the 2024/25 season). "Our responsibility is to find the balance: invest to maintain the competitiveness of all sections, within the rules of the game set by LaLiga, and without losing the identity of the entity," he emphasized.

• 📌 THE DATA: of the €95M of non-registerable wage bill, 56 are allocated to professional sections, amateur sports, youth football, and Barça Academy.

Thus, the wage bill of the Blaugrana entity will be distributed as follows for the 2025/26 season:

1. €56M for professional sections
2. €32M for youth and other expenses of the first team
3. €6.2M for the Barça Academy
4. €1M for amateur sports

Economic strategy of the Blaugrana club to maintain competitiveness

Beyond this, O'Callaghan made it clear that, despite the movements made by the board of directors to regularize the financial situation, the main premise has always been to maintain a competitive level in all disciplines:

"You don't have to be the club that spends the most to win. What matters is having a good sports structure, betting on homegrown talent, and reinforcing ourselves with criteria, with experienced players. This way we can compete against teams that have more budget than us," he said.

Likewise, Xavier took the opportunity to reveal the reason for the recent budgetary imbalance that led the Blaugrana board to approve a guarantee of €7M: "Everything that is not first team football, players, and first and second coach, has deviated by seven million euros and that affects registrations. Within those seven million euros of imbalance, however, variables such as bonuses for titles are included."

Finally, the Catalan director once again boasted about the economic management and the future vision of the board: "Our goal is for Barça to continue being a benchmark in all sports, alongside the clubs that spend the most, but maintaining our philosophy and our way of doing things," he concluded.