Barcelona are back to being linked with the very best players in football and money is now no object again - or at least that is the narrative that is being pushed out.
Liverpool's contract stalemate that still exists with Mohamed Salah has only served to add fuel to the fire and to claims that the Egyptian is a target for the Spanish giants. And Erling Haaland, a player who a club with healthy financials such as Liverpool would likely baulk at the cost, is also being mentioned as someone ready to heady to the Nou Camp, so too Bayern Munich's talismanic Robert Lewandowski.
But there is a reality that exists behind the headlines, one where Barcelona have to deal in real money and not Monopoly money, a reality that involves having to actually confront the financial carnage that arrived at the Nou Camp when the pandemic hit, one that saw their financial recklessness of some years actually come home to roost.
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The days of simply strong-arming teams just because they are Barcelona have passed, at least for now. Philippe Coutinho's £142m move to the Nou Camp from Liverpool was a sign of all that was wrong with their excess and lack of strategy, where they paid well over the odds for a player and allowed their European rivals to use that money to actually become far better than them. Four years later and Coutinho's Barcelona dream became a nightmare and he is attempting to rebuild himself at Aston Villa.
Barcelona are a club more than £1bn in debt. Their spending cap, imposed by La Liga, was slashed by almost £250m per year to around £85m for the 2021/22 season. The loss of Lionel Messi to Paris Saint-Germain last summer helped them but it wasn't the panacea to all that ailed them - and it wasn't until January that they were even allowed to register summer signing Ferran Torres as it would have seen the club break Financial Fair Play rules. The signings that it made in January were Adama Traore on an initial loan and Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on a free transfer, two players who are unlikely to catapult Barcelona back to where they want to be, and where they feel they should be.
The Catalan side have signed a multi-year deal with Spotify in recent weeks, with the music streaming platform to sponsors the shirts and, in a first for Barcelona, the Nou Camp itself. Having to sell the naming rights to their world famous stadium was a sign of how dire the situation was and the need that they had to raise funds to try and invest the money back on the pitch. It's akin to Liverpool selling the naming rights for Anfield. Barca could no longer rely on fantasy football to get them by and there has had to be an acceptance that they have been passed as a footballing powerhouse by the likes of Liverpool and Manchester City.
The public Barcelona and the private one don't seem to be hand in hand, though. While Salah, Haaland and Lewandowski might be linked with moves to the Nou Camp, ignoring the fact that Barcelona remain a club dealing with a financial crisis that threatened to bring them to their knees last year, the reality is that they are by no means dead certs for the Champions League next season and have already exited this season's competition. They are a squad that is miles away from being at Liverpool's level and they still have firefighting to do to even engage in the transfer market this summer, never mind being a powerful force in it.
According to Spanish media outlet Marca, before Barcelona can even consider what they might do in terms of incomings this summer, they have to try and reduce the money owed to three of their most celebrated stalwarts: Gerard Pique, Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets. Those players were present for some of the club's golden moments in recent times. Barcelona must now convince these club legends that they should reduce what was due to them in order for the club to sign players and overcome the financial mess of their own doing.
Marca claim that the trio, through salaries, bonuses and payments due to them after they agreed to defer wages during the height of the crisis at the Nou Camp, are owed more than £80m. If Barcelona want to spend then they have to save elsewhere, and for a club that doesn't even know what its salary cap will be for 2022/23 yet, something that will be determined by La Liga, then that is no easy task. It is also something that they could find La Liga chiefs in uncharitable mood over, with the league's president Javier Tebas at odds with both Barcelona and Real Madrid over their continued push for a European Super League.
Barca sporting director Mateu Alemany has a job on his hands and will have to convince three players who have already deferred salaries and agreed to forgo some bonuses to cut their base salaries.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta has some irons in the fire when it comes to revenue generators for the Blaugrana, including selling 49 percent stakes in both Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising and Barca Studios, as well as creating their own deal with private equity company CVC Capital Partners, who had struck a league-wide deal with La Liga that Barca and Real Madrid rejected.
Rumoured Liverpool target Raphina is another to have been linked with a Barcelona move, and while a swoop for the Leeds United winger seems far more realistic than moves for Salah, Haaland or Lewandowski, there is still work that needs to be done to put the club in a position to even be active participants in the summer window. Moving on players like Coutinho and Antoine Griezmann will be key, and others such as Samuel Umtiti and Sergino Dest may well find the door closed on their Nou Camp futures.
The rebuild job at Barcelona isn't just one that needs to happen on the pitch, it is having to happen behind the scenes and it is something that doesn't have a quick fix. Unless something dramatic changes with the club's finances in the months ahead then the names linked with them in the rumour mill are ambitious in the extreme. And Barcelona now isn't Barcelona a decade or so ago. Football has moved on, and Liverpool have been able to move on with it. Barcelona have risked themselves getting left behind.
