Will be interesting if Tom Henning Øvrebø is involved. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11857693/Barcelona-directors-claim-refereeing-boss-paid-self-defence-protect-against-bias.html

Tbh Real Madrid need looking into as well given their 2016/17 league win had massive controversy. 

19 minutes ago, Kev56 said:

Will be interesting if Tom Henning Øvrebø is involved. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11857693/Barcelona-directors-claim-refereeing-boss-paid-self-defence-protect-against-bias.html

Says its purely a domestic league matter, wouldn't surprise you if they were doing similar payments to Ovrebo though. Most corrupt game of football ever seen.

Barca and real cooking the books again... I'll take my cue from the big man... "its a F**king disgrace".

 

 

 

11 minutes ago, RIP Mourinho said:

Says its purely a domestic league matter, wouldn't surprise you if they were doing similar payments to Ovrebo though. Most corrupt game of football ever seen.

Overbo also sent Abidal off wrongly, for him I'd say extreme incompetence as opposed to corruption.

He had a similar nightmare for Fiorentina/Bayern the following year, the simple truth is he should never have been allowed to ref on such a huge stage.

1 hour ago, Argo said:

Overbo also sent Abidal off wrongly, for him I'd say extreme incompetence as opposed to corruption.

He had a similar nightmare for Fiorentina/Bayern the following year, the simple truth is he should never have been allowed to ref on such a huge stage.

I dont get this Abidal thing, Abidal himself said he was right to be red carded.

 

Quote

Makeshift Barcelona centre-back Eric Abidal has admitted to bringing down Chelsea striker Nicolas Anelka in an incident that produced a red card in Wednesday's Champions League semi-final.

Abidal was being used in central defence in the absence of Carlos Puyol and said that although Anelka seemed to go down easily in the second-half challenge, he admitted to bringing down his compatriot.

"I was defending against Nico [Anelka], but as I was the last defender and the referee thought I fouled him, dismissing me is normal," Abidal said.

"If I let Nico run towards goal then he scores the second one and it is over, so we can say it is a good foul. I sacrificed myself. It is always disappointing to reach the final without being able to feature."

 

1 minute ago, dkw said:

I dont get this Abidal thing, Abidal himself said he was right to be red carded.

This. He was correctly sent off. 

The only argument I'd make for Barca fans is that they should of had a penalty the first leg when Bosingwa tugged Henry. 

 

My least favourite European team, they've never won anything fairly, they've done it by cheating and with help of dodgy refs like Ovrebo, Anders Fris and Terje Hague.

18 hours ago, Argo said:

Overbo also sent Abidal off wrongly, for him I'd say extreme incompetence as opposed to corruption.

He had a similar nightmare for Fiorentina/Bayern the following year, the simple truth is he should never have been allowed to ref on such a huge stage.

You're right, he should have been sent off long before he actually was

19 hours ago, olderschoolcfc said:

Barca and real cooking the books again... I'll take my cue from the big man... "its a F**king disgrace".

 

 

So bad i watched it twice.

Quote

Barcelona’s €200m problem: Gavi’s contract, La Liga conflict and a damaged brand

 

BARCELONA, SPAIN - SEPTEMBER 15:  FC Barcelona's midfielder Gavi and FC Barcelona's President Joan Laporta pose during a Gaviâs ceremony of renewal his contract at the Nou Camp stadium in Barcelona on September 11, 2022 (Photo by Adria Puig/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

By Pol Ballús

7h ago

 

When they set out their financial budget for this season, Barcelona counted on reaching the Champions League quarter-finals at least.

 

After they were knocked out of the group stage in the autumn, it left the club looking at a €20.2m (£17.8m; $21.7m) shortfall in expected revenue, so a new target was set: reaching the Europa League final would bring in roughly the same figure.

 

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Again, things did not go to plan. Elimination by Manchester United in the knockout round play-offs meant Barca earned just €500,000 from the competition. And unfortunately for them, that’s not where their financial worries end.

 

In February, once the transfer window closed, La Liga published its latest round of salary limits that each member club must meet. These are calculated according to a club’s revenue and operating costs.

 

Despite the January sale of Memphis Depay to Atletico Madrid and Gerard Pique’s November decision to retire, the amount Barcelona are allowed to spend on salaries actually went down to €648m, from €656m last summer.

 

La Liga’s next calculations will come at the end of the season, and Barca are already braced for an even bigger drop.

 

Club sources, who preferred to speak to The Athletic anonymously to protect their positions, estimate they will be allowed to spend between €450m and €500m on wages. This is why La Liga president Javier Tebas has been repeating his message that Barcelona need to lower their expenditure on wages by about €200m.

 

And of course, now the club are having to respond to this amid the fallout following the news that Spanish public prosecutors have filed charges accusing the club of corruption over payments made to a former referee’s committee vice president.

 

So there’s a lot to get through. Here’s the latest picture.

 

No more levers?

At the end of last season, Barca found themselves in a similar situation. They were €144m over La Liga’s salary limit and had to either lower the amount of money they spent on wages or quickly increase their revenue. They chose the latter, conducting a dramatic series of asset sales that came to be known as ‘pulling levers’.

 

This included Barca selling a 25 per cent share of their TV rights for the next 25 years and a 49 per cent share of Barca Studios, its multimedia content arm. The sales were divided into four operations, with separate buyers.

 

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

 

Barcelona charged with corruption over payments to former referees chief

 

The €737.5m raised solved the problem and even financed a €140m spend on new players. Raphinha arrived from Leeds United, Robert Lewandowski signed from Bayern Munich and centre-back Jules Kounde joined from Sevilla. Barca also picked up Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie from Chelsea and AC Milan on free transfers.

 

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But since then, La Liga has changed the rules. Pulling further financial levers is no longer as attractive an option.

 

Regulations introduced in December mean the impact of any such asset sale on salary limits is now restricted. Regardless of true value, when it comes to calculating salary limits, anything over five per cent of a club’s total income will not count. In practical terms, it kills any prospect of a club raising a transformative amount of money, like Barcelona did last summer.

 

 

Robert Lewandowski and Jules Kounde, two of Barcelona’s summer signings, following their side’s 1-0 win over Athletic Bilbao on Sunday (Photo: Pablo Garcia Sacristan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

However, the rule does not apply to any club departments that do not report profits or any new business branches that still don’t produce money for a club. This is an interesting detail to note in the context of Barcelona’s official TV channel, Barca TV, which runs at a deficit. Last January, local radio station SER Catalunya reported the club could be considering its sale as it could provide a “lever effect” in the numbers.

 

However, senior club sources, who also wished to remain anonymous, were adamant this was not an option being considered.

 

These same sources describe instead how Barca are planning to “increase income from marketing and sponsorship deals, matchday revenue and the club’s museum”, while also “trying to reduce expenditure as much as we can”.

 

Speaking in February, they said that they are already expecting the club’s commercial department to report higher revenues than were forecast last summer, with more than €210m expected to come through sponsorship deals. They had budgeted €189m.

 

But now that picture is more complicated. There has to be a question mark over the potential attractiveness of Barca’s brand given the latest scandal to break at the club, with Spanish public prosecutors filing corruption charges over payments made to former referees’ official Jose Maria Enriquez Negreira.

 

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President Joan Laporta hinted at another option in an interview last year: the possibility of playing a series of sponsored friendly games abroad over the summer.

 

“It might happen that we play one or two friendlies before June 30,” Laporta said. “We are getting a lot of proposals because Barcelona has recovered its pedigree, from an institutional and sporting point of view. It means there are a lot of investors considering this.”

 

What about player sales?

Last summer, Barca raised a lot of money through financial levers but there was also a big clear-out of unwanted players, both through sales and loan deals.

 

This year, there will not be so many sales. In February, The Athletic went through the Barca squad to provide detailed updates on each player’s situation. Barca might consider selling Ansu Fati and Franck Kessie but are a long way from anything being decided yet.

 

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

 

Barcelona squad state of play: Who will stay and who will go this summer?

 

In terms of expected arrivals, Barca are again keeping an eye on transfer targets whose contracts are expiring. That’s all they can really afford to do, especially as some of last year’s signings, including 34-year-old Lewandowski, agreed deals that would provide them with a salary increase before the start of 2023-24.

 

Manchester City’s Ilkay Gundogan could be an option, although nothing has been agreed. Inigo Martinez will also be available on a free transfer this summer and Barca have been looking at the Athletic Bilbao defender.

 

Laporta knows they will not be able to afford many big names this summer, and the emergence of Alejandro Balde and Gavi has shown what the academy can offer. Faith in La Masia, Barca’s famous youth system, is what club sources are stressing.

 

And there is conflict to come

There is another X-factor at play here: the tense relationship between Barca and La Liga, which is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the recent drama over the status of star 18-year-old Gavi.

 

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The midfielder’s situation is a complex one.

 

When Gavi signed a contract extension in September until 2026, he was still registered as an academy player. The new deal included a clause that would allow him to leave as a free agent if Barca had not registered him as a first-team player by June 30, 2023.

 

go-deeper

GO DEEPER

 

Barca risked losing Gavi for nothing. So they acted fast — and in secret

 

Barca could only change his status to that of a first-team player during a transfer window. By late January, they had not managed to do so, with La Liga stating it could not be done as Barca were in breach of their salary limit rules.

 

Just before the end of the window, Barca decided to seek a legal ruling, acting without La Liga’s knowledge, to try and force the competition body to register him as a first-team player.

 

According to court documents, when presenting their case, Barca claimed La Liga’s decision to reject Gavi’s registration was part of “a harassment campaign” against the club.

 

 

Laporta and Gavi, pictured in September after the player’s new contract was announced (Photo: Joan Valls/Urbanandsport /NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Barca were successful in their legal bid. On the very last day of the window, January 31, a Barcelona court ordered a temporary injunction that forced La Liga to register Gavi as a first-team player, while also giving the club 20 working days to file a separate case, through which a permanent resolution over the player’s status would be reached.

 

Barcelona filed this on March 2. La Liga then challenged their submission, claiming they had missed the deadline by a day.

 

On Monday, in a document addressed to both parties and seen by The Athletic, the court confirmed in La Liga’s favour, stating Barcelona did indeed file their documents after the deadline. But the court has given Barca five days to respond before making a final decision on whether Gavi’s registration should revert to its previous status — that of an academy player.

 

If this were to happen, that clause agreed in September, allowing him to leave for nothing this summer, would come back into effect.

 

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Laporta and La Liga president Javier Tebas have also clashed over the recent corruption charges brought against Barca.

 

Before those charges were made official, Tebas said: “If he [Laporta] does not justify properly or in a more reasonable way what has occurred, I believe he should resign.”

 

Laporta used an institutional event at the club to hit back a few days later.

 

“We had been advised that Tebas was promoting a campaign against Barcelona and myself as a president,” he said. “Now he’s shown his true colours. He is obsessed with Barca and has some sort of phobia with our club.

 

“He can’t forgive us for rejecting his CVC deal. He can’t deal either with the fact we are backing the Super League. His aim is to control Barcelona from a distance, but he can’t do that with me in charge.”

 

So everybody should be braced for more conflict. When it comes to the salary limit, Barca feel they are being treated unfairly, while La Liga question whether the club understands the financial rules.

Hopefully this kills the holier than thou f**kers right off. Mes Que un bunch of cheating bellends.

They are rotten to the core

18 hours ago, blueandproud said:

My least favourite European team, they've never won anything fairly, they've done it by cheating and with help of dodgy refs like Ovrebo, Anders Fris and Terje Hague.

It's similar to United under Ferguson. The amount of points they won during "Fergie time" gave him a few titles alone. Everybody laughs at the whole Fergie time thing, but we shouldn't be laughing, we should be questioning why it was a thing at all.

39 minutes ago, Scott Harris said:

It's similar to United under Ferguson. The amount of points they won during "Fergie time" gave him a few titles alone. Everybody laughs at the whole Fergie time thing, but we shouldn't be laughing, we should be questioning why it was a thing at all.

Were there not refs that came forward pubicly stating they were pressured/intimitated by SAF?

Meanwhile FIFA have confirmed that Chelsea and Real Madrid have secured places in the new look 32 team (!) Club World Cup in 2025

39 minutes ago, The Rising Sun said:

Meanwhile FIFA have confirmed that Chelsea and Real Madrid have secured places in the new look 32 team (!) Club World Cup in 2025

So that's about 4-5 weeks away from the domestic competitions and even more silly matches to play? Sounds wonderful 

14 hours ago, Valerie said:

So that's about 4-5 weeks away from the domestic competitions and even more silly matches to play? Sounds wonderful 

No I like it. We are one of only 5 clubs who have won absolutely everything there is to win at club level, so they have to make up new competitions so we can win them too.

On 14/03/2023 at 20:06, Kev56 said:

Will be interesting if Tom Henning Øvrebø is involved. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-11857693/Barcelona-directors-claim-refereeing-boss-paid-self-defence-protect-against-bias.html

Don't remind me of this sh*tshow of a match. It was f**king ridiculous and angers me to this day. Tom Henning Øvrebø is the most incompetent referee I have ever seen and makes each and every PL ref seem like god-like figure bringing justice to the world.

43 minutes ago, reparto corse said:

Don't remind me of this sh*tshow of a match. It was f**king ridiculous and angers me to this day. Tom Henning Øvrebø is the most incompetent referee I have ever seen and makes each and every PL ref seem like god-like figure bringing justice to the world.

I think he was just incompetent rather than bent.

He actually sent a Barca player off in that game, can't believe he would have done that if he was being paid.

Awful penalty decisions though,. we lost our heads over that, I think we were through without needing to score anyway?

But it affected the team for sure .

It was his pure pig headed f**king arrogance the f**ked me off.

Drogba missing one on ones with Valdez in both legs was equally as annoying tbh. 

Certainly made up for it 3 years later.