De Jong's departure will relieve Barcelona's registration concerns

If Frenkie de Jong doesn't go to

, Barcelona might have to sell commercial income streams and broadcasting rights to get out of financial trouble.

Football financial expert

Kieran Maguire

told Stats Perform how hard it is for

to meet LaLiga's financial fair play rules. The Blaugrana have already spent more than €100 million to get

Raphinha

, Robert Lewandowski, Franck Kessie, and Andreas Christensen, all of whom were free agents, and to keep Ousmane Dembele.

Barca's deals have raised questions because the club is worth €1.3 billion in its first year.

manager

Julian Nagelsmann

wonders how they were able to sign Die Roten's most valuable player, Robert Lewandowski.

Maguire said that Blaugrana president Joan Laporta has used two "economic levers." The Catalan giants first sold 10% of their LaLiga broadcasting rights to the investment firm Sixth Street.

Maguire said that the second way is for Barcelona to sell up to 49% of their commercial income "in a deal that could be worth a couple hundred million euros." Maguire said that these two deals could give Barca up to €130 million to spend, but he also said that they need De Jong to leave, since he has been linked to the Red Devils, so that they can get the money and sign their new players.

He told Stats Perform, "They can sign players, but they can't register players, which is a bigger problem." "According to LaLiga rules, Barcelona has to be able to lower their short-term debt.

"Now, they're going to do that by making money in the short term. First of all, when it comes to their broadcasting rights, they made a deal with Sixth Street from the US, and I think they sold 15% of their broadcasting rights for the next 20 years. It's like a payday loan, where you borrow money now and pay it back with money from your future earnings. Laporta calls this one of their two economic levers. The other way they are going to do this is through some of their business income."

"I think they're willing to give up to 49% of those in a deal that could be worth a couple hundred million euros." They will have enough money to spend if you put those two things together. I think they should be able to sign one player now that the first deal with Sixth Street has gone through. They needed De Jong to leave so that they could sign up the other people."

"If that doesn't work, you can expect them to pull other levers, maybe faster, to make money they need to sign up the rest of the players." United and Barcelona reportedly made a deal for De Jong worth £63m (€75m) last week, with add-ons that could cost an extra £8.5m (€10m).

But reports said that the move for the Dutch international player is being held up because Barca owes De Jong £17m (€20m) in back wages. Maguire added, "The player is in the right here. The player signed a contract with an agreed-upon amount of pay." "During COVID-19, the club asked the player to give up something.

"If the club can afford to sign Lewandowski, Raphinha, and [Ferran] Torres, those players won't have to take pay cuts. Then why should De Jong take the blame for this? You can see why the player would be angry about what happened.

"In reality, he is being treated as a disposable asset and asked to make a financial sacrifice at the same time," Maguire said that Barca's financial problems, which forced Lionel Messi to move to

Paris Saint-Germain

last August, are the result of their own mistakes and not just the coronavirus pandemic.

"From a financial point of view, Barcelona has been run very badly for a long time," he said. "They relied on Messi to be the center of their attention until COVID made things go wrong. But COVID isn't the only reason Barcelona has this problem and other clubs don't. So Barcelona is trying to emotionally blackmail some players by putting the spotlight on the Barcelona brands. This has worked with some fans."

"And I think players will fight it because they've done things in good faith. I don't get to decide if they're worth their money. No one made Barcelona pay these players what they are being paid now. So it's up to Barcelona to live up to the contracts, but they don't seem willing to do so."

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