Being a multi-sport club involves a considerable economic burden for Barcelona. The identity that the entity has claimed for decades under its motto month as a club It was supported in its sections, now five professional – women’s football, basketball, basketball, indoor football and roller hockey – which, structurally, have historically been deficient. Since 2021, these disciplines have accumulated losses of approximately 235.9 million, 65% of which are concentrated in basketball.
Even though revenues have increased and the annual deficit has been reduced by some 24 million compared to four years ago, Barça’s delicate economic situation and its restrictions Fair play they condition the sections, because the club has won the title. Only women’s football, with the profits of the last financial years, the last of the two million, had escaped this dynamic.
Cuts have generated traumatic results, like those of Mirotic or Jasikevicius in the ballroom, or that have forced play on the field, like in women’s football. Sporting success – in 2022/23, Barça won all six championships in all its professional sections – is increasingly difficult to maintain, especially at European level. “It’s hard for us to maintain the level,” Xavi O’Callaghan, head of professional sports at Barça, admitted this summer. The reflection was the 24/25 course, which took place without any champion, a circumstance without precedent since 2019.
The goal remains to be competitive and win, even between cups. The baseball player’s recent triumph at the Club World Cup is an example, even with an asterisk: Nielsen, considered the best goalkeeper in the world, will not continue the next campaign. “We feel at a disadvantage,” O’Callaghan said.
Each season, La Liga calculates the team’s cost cap based on expected income and expenses, and Barça divides this margin between the registerable payroll – players, first and second coach and fitness trainer of the men’s first team – and the registerable, where the rest is included. staff from the first team, branch, grassroots football and all sections. Last season, the club had 91 million registered salary, two-thirds of which went to basketball (31.5 million), women’s football (13.75), basketball (7.5), indoor football (4) and hockey skates (2). For this course, according to O’Callaghan, the figure rises to 95 million, of which 56 allocated to the sections: the female increases by one million, and stability for the rest.
Except the balance sheet, which reduces his salary to 28.75 million. This is the historically most deficit section, despite revenues having doubled since 2021 and sports salaries falling, then reduced by 22%. And that’s why the club reduced the hemorrhage: the deficit fell to 20.6 million, compared to 34.68 four years ago. Without a title in recent seasons, passion has found oxygen with the arrival of Xavi Pascual.
The counterpoint to this offers women’s football, an oasis that offers a glimpse of its economic technology. Since 2021, its revenues have increased fivefold, from 4.42 to 21.69 million, and salary expenses have tripled. However, fair play has not been released after a summer of numerous releases and an austere chip policy. Despite everything, it remains without rival in Spain and keeps the pulse in Europe.
The rest of the sections evolve in a fragile balance. The aerostat continues to dominate Spain, but in Europe it faces more muscular rivals. Its salary investment decreased by 26%, from 8.81 million in 2021 to 6.49 in 2025. Hockey skates maintain their national hegemony and continue to compete in Europe, although they have not won the European Cup since 2018, and their small salary expenses have decreased by 11%. The football league, second in the League, is playing its second season in the Champions League, and has seen its salaries drop by 26% compared to 2021.
El Barça is trying to preserve its multisport DNA in a context of financial survival. Being more than a club continues to be a source of pride; y in the current scenario, it is also an economic challenge.
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