Barcelona pulls the second summer 'economic lever'

After the financially troubled Spanish club sold another piece of their future television rights to the American investment company Sixth Street, Barcelona pulled their second "economic lever" of the summer.

Barcelona had previously made a financial gain of €267 million (£228 million, $272 million) by selling 10% of their broadcast rights to Sixth Street for the ensuing 25 years.

The club has now sold a further 15% of its TV rights deals to the same corporation, giving Sixth Street a total of 25% ownership of the club's TV contract through 2047.

Barcelona, which placed second in La Liga last year, badly needs investment to sign their new acquisitions.

This summer, they were quite busy in the transfer market, bringing in Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich, Raphinha from Leeds United, and free agents Andreas Christensen and Franck Kessie.

Additionally, the club has extended the contracts of Ousmane Dembele and Sergi Roberto, and they are still hoping to entice defender Jules Kounde away from Sevilla.

However, Barcelona's well-known financial issues have prohibited the team from registering its new additions since they did not satisfy La Liga's financial fair play requirements.

The Catalan newspaper SPORT broke the news first, and the club later confirmed it. According to SPORT, the club is already preparing to engage a third "lever" to make sure its new additions can be registered without having to go with first-team players.

The club's president, Joan Laporta, said in a statement, "We continue to move forward in our plan and are thrilled to have finalised this further agreement with Sixth Street which offers us with a considerable improvement in our financial strength."

"Sixth Street and we have committed and worked together in recent weeks with a common vision of what we intend to accomplish for our company, and we look forward to a fantastic long-term partnership arrangement," the statement said.