Manchester United are in tentative talks with Barcelona over a loan deal for Marcus Rashford, although there remains doubt over whether the Catalan club can do the agreement in time for Monday’s deadline, given their struggles to comply with La Liga’s financial controls.
Barcelona is the preferred destination for Rashford but, as with any club seeking to take the striker on loan, there is the issue of his significant wages – the contract he agreed in the summer of 2023 means that he is on upwards of £325,000 per week. Should the Barcelona deal break down there would appear to be no other option but a rapprochement with Ruben Amorim, who has been unequivocal in excluding Rashford from the first-team squad.
The player and his advisers, chiefly his brother Dwaine Maynard, see Barcelona as the only viable option. The club are performing strongly in the Champions League this season,where they are second only to Liverpool in the overall league phase. They trail Real Madrid by seven points in La Liga. In the background, however, there have been many problems complying with the financial controls put in place by La Liga, which dictate that salary limits are linked to revenue.
Both Dani Olmo and Pau Victor, their two summer cash signings, are only registered for the remainder of the season pending an appeal from La Liga against the decision – made by the government ministry for sport. With the club in dispute with La Liga, it makes a further signing very difficult. Javier Tebas, La Liga’s president, has said his organisation will fight the decision temporarily to approve the Olmo and Victor registrations.
Rashford’s deal is complicated and salary, bonuses and other fees will have to be negotiated if any loan is to happen. The 27-year-old has missed the last 11 games. From his side the claim is that the player is training harder than ever. Ideally, United would prefer a high-value sale which would give them room for manoeuvre in the market in the last few days, but, given Rashford’s current salary and lack of recent game time, that looks unlikely.
At the heart of the current Barcelona-La Liga dispute is a proposed deal to raise €100 million (£84 million) of revenue through the future sale of VIP seats at the as-yet uncompleted new Camp Nou. There is serious doubt over whether that represents a legitimate income stream. Uefa has ruled sale of future income streams as inadmissible as legitimate income injection and ruled that it is amortised over the length of a contract.
Barcelona have sold significant segments of their future income, including in 2022, 25 per cent of their domestic television rights income for 25 years to the US investor Sixth Street for €667.4 million. They have upwards of €2 billion of debt, including borrowing for the new stadium.
