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Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi labelled Barcelona’s methods of raising funds unfair and suggested UEFA will investigate the Blaugrana’s financial conduct.
Despite facing mounting debt levels and struggling to meet LaLiga’s strict salary limits, Barca completed big-money moves for Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde and Raphinha – as well as signing several free agents – during the recent transfer window.
Barca sold 25 per cent of their future LaLiga media rights, as well as a 49 per cent share of their in-house production company Barca Studios, to raise funds for their transfer activity.
President Joan Laporta referred to those measures as economic “levers” that were activated to improve the squad, but Al-Khelaifi has cast doubt upon their legality.
“Is this fair? No, it’s not fair,” he told Politico. “Is it legal? I’m not sure.
“If they allow them, others will do the same. UEFA of course have their own [financial] regulations. For sure they’re going to look at everything.”
Al-Khelaifi, who is also a UEFA executive committee member and serves as chairman of the European Club Association, has been critical of Barcelona on several occasions recently.
Last week, he appeared to reference the Catalan giants during a speech to European club representatives, saying: “The new financial sustainability rules are a positive development.
“But we need to be careful. Dangerous levels of debt and magical equity deals are not a sustainable path.”
Al-Khelaifi has also been embroiled in a war of words with LaLiga, with the Spanish league filing a complaint over PSG’s spending following Kylian Mbappe’s decision to reject a move to Real Madrid earlier this year.
The PSG president has also repeatedly criticised Barca and Madrid for their failure to abandon the European Super League project, declaring; “the ecosystem of football is bigger than just two or three clubs”, earlier this month.
