FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has revealed that the club has posted record revenues of a 600m and will fight the premier league dominance of the transfer market.
The new A?5.136 billion television rights agreement that the Premier League announced will result into 70 percent increase in the value of its British television rights for the 2016-19 seasons with Sky and BT paying a combined 5.136 billion pounds ($7.8 billion) to show games.
That deal does not kick in until next season, but, the affects of it are already visible with the Premier League clubs set to spend big and Manchester City have already done so by securing Raheem Sterling from Liverpool FC and Manchester United paying big wages to Schweinsteiger, Schneiderlin and Depay.
Bartomeu to fight the Premier League’s dominance of transfer market.
Alongside Real Madrid, FC Barcelona have traditionally been the big spenders in the transfer market and president Josep Maria Bartomeu is unfazed by the challenge thrown at them by the new TV deal that will give more spending power to the Premier League outfits.
“We are going to fight this,” Bartomeu said ahead of friendly against Manchester United in Santa Clara.
“It’s true that the Premier League right now is the best league competition in the world, not only in a sporting way but in terms of income, too.“
” . The new television rights contract with the Premier League is something that the rest of the leagues, including La Liga, have to follow.“
“But we want to have the best players in our league. Barcelona and Real Madrid, we are the biggest clubs in La Liga but also other clubs like Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Sevilla or Athletic Bilbao — they are doing a nice job and I am sure that they are going to try to have big talent too.“
‘FC Barcelona income rose to record levels’
Bartomeu went onto reveal that the club has posted record revenue and is hoping it will help them gain advantage in the transfer market.
“Barcelona’s income this year has increased to more than a 600 million, which is a record. No other club in the world has as big an income as Barcelona.”
“We work hard, we know that the competition is getting closer so we have to get as much income as possible so we can try to have the best players and we want them to be paid at the level they are.”
The figures for the income of this year are yet to be released, but, according to 2013-14 revenue, FC Barcelona are fourth in the list of the teams with highest revenue with 484.6m income as revealed by Deloitte