Barcelona hope to have all their players registered for their first LaLiga game of the season against Getafe on Sunday after announcing an agreement to sell 29.5% of Barca Vision to LIBERO Football Finance AG and NIPA Capital B.V. for €120 million ($131.9m), sources have told ESPN.
The same sources tell ESPN that thanks to the agreement the Catalan club will also have an amount available to strengthen the team and fulfil the wishes of coach Xavi Hernandez, who continues to demand the arrival of a new right-back and a goalscoring midfielder.
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Barca Vision is the club’s platform to place all digital content around Web3 and blockchain including NFTs and metaverse, which are part of the club’s strategy to build the digital Espai Barça.
The shares of Barca vision sold to the new investors correspond to Socios.com and Orpheus Media, who last summer acquired 24.5% of Barca Vision for €100m, respectively.
The latest cash injection added to the €12.5m taken from Franck Kessié’s move to Al Ahli and the imminent departure of Ousmane Dembélé to Paris Saint-Germain in a €50m deal should ensure Barca can register all the players.
Barca have made four signings this summer following Ilkay Gundogan, Inigo Martínez, Oriol Romeu and Vitor Roque, although the latter will not join until January.
The Catalan club has to register the renewed contracts of existing players Ronald Araújo, Inaki Pena, Marcos Alonso and Sergi Roberto.
Barca are also in advanced talks for left-back Alejandro Balde and winger Lamine Yamal to sign new deals, with their contracts ending in June 2024.
Barca activated several financial levers last summer in order to register players.
LaLiga approved Barcelona’s two-year financial viability plan in June.
“We already left hospital, and we are adapting to normal life,” Barca president Joan Laporta said earlier this month when asked about the club’s financial situation. “The club is better than two years ago.”
Barca also announced on Friday that they have reached a business combination agreement with Mountain & Co. I. Acquisition Corporation, subject to the approval of Barca members and the company’s shareholders.
Under this transaction, Barca will merge its digital Barca Vision and audiovisual content units under the brand “Barca Media.”
“FC Barcelona expects Barça Media to become a significant source of income for the Club a pro-forma enterprise value of approximately US$1 billion (approximately €910 million),” the club said in a statement.
