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Barcelona ranks as the weakest club in terms of player sales

Barcelona ranks as the weakest club in terms of player sales

Barcelona are still struggling with their salary cap three years after the departure of the infamous Josep Maria Bartomeu, and this may be partly down to their efforts to bring in sales for their big-ticket signings. Likewise, Spanish football has in the past been strong in this regard, but seems to be on the decline.

After a study by the CIES football observatory on the profit and loss resulting from transfers (excluding academy players) from 2015 to the present day, Villarreal is the only La Liga team that managed to break into the top 20.

As noted by Relevo, they are in 17th place after having collected 132 million euros more than they spent. Before, clubs like Sevilla and Valencia would be known for their lucrative recruitment, but that is no longer the case. Real Sociedad (€92 million) and Real Betis (€103 million) are also performing well in this regard.


At the other end of the scale, Barcelona ranks as the fourth worst team in the major leagues with a negative balance of €368m, behind the likes of Paris Saint-Germain, Manchester United and Chelsea.

Other violators in this regard are Real Madrid, which has a negative balance of 131 million euros. Atletico Madrid is much lower in the ranking, but has a negative balance of 54 million euros.

With Barcelona and Real Madrid there is a big caveat, in that both rely on their academies to produce players regularly, and especially with Los Blancos, to make a profit for them in the transfer market.

It shows that the Yellow Submarine haven't lost their way and it's no wonder that while Sevilla stagnate in the table after a period of success, Villarreal are challenging for a top four spot after their success in the market. /Telegraph/