That doesn’t mean the Spain international can walk straight into the Barca starting XI. As fans will remember from the summer and the whole Lionel Messi saga, Barca are still wrestling with a financial crisis.
As part of that, they need to find a way to reduce their salary mass to comply with their drastically reduced La Liga salary cap. Barca‘s cap was reduced more than any other team’s this season due to a big fall in their revenue over the course of the pandemic.
Despite offloading Messi and Antoine Griezmann in the summer, Barca remain over their current cap, and as such, they can only spend 25% of all outgoings.
Now, this is strictly a salary cap, which only takes into account salaries and image rights, while the transfer fee itself can be filed under a sporting cost.