La Liga president confirms Barcelona close to returning to 1:1 rule – ‘The Nike deal is going to help’ | OneFootball

Speaking on the Wild Project on YouTube (h/t AS), La Liga president Javier Tebas commended the work done by FC Barcelona in reducing their wage bill.

Not stopping at that, he also confirmed that the Catalans are very close to returning to the 1:1 Financial Fair Play rule.

This past summer proved to be a tricky one for Barça as they once again failed to achieve the 1:1 ruling, owing to their inability to finalise the Nike agreement and find a new investor for the Barça Vision deal.

Despite everything, the Catalans have managed to cut down their wage bill and have seen significant improvement in their salary limit for the season which La Liga announced earlier this month.

Commending Joan Laporta & co. for the work that they have done, Tebas said: “Barça are in less bad shape than people think. When Laporta became president they declared a loss of €560 million. Someone has to put them in. They had a wage bill of €600 million.”

Barcelona are close to returning to the 1:1 rule. (Photo by Eric Alonso/Getty Images)

Continuing, he added: “Unless we let them sign players, they are not going to sell them. That’s why the famous 60% rule. Right now Barça are close to the 1:1 rule.

“From the one where Barcelona’s levers were forbidden, there was a queue of clubs who wanted to do the same.

“I hope and wish that Barcelona can be on the 1:1 rule in January. The Nike deal is going to help them a lot. They have cut €200 million in wage bill, that’s a barbaric amount.”

During the chat, Tebas also discussed his relationship with Barcelona president Laporta, claiming that he comes off as a bit too optimistic at times.

“He is very optimistic. He’s a bit of an optimist. He should be less so, he should be more restrained. As president of La Liga, my objective is not to get on well with the presidents,” said Tebas.

The La Liga chief also commented that he expects Barça to be sanctioned in some way over the Negreira case, possibly under sports corruption charges.