Barcelona exempted from €216,000 La Liga fine after winning Christensen FFP appeal

 It is no secret that La Liga and FC Barcelona have been at loggerheads for a while now over the former’s Financial Fair Play rules.

Heading into the summer transfer window, the Blaugrana have been told to reduce their wage bill by €200 million in order to be able to sign and register new players. Gavi’s registration as a first-team player has also been put on hold because of the FFP problems.

While these are topics pertaining to the upcoming summer, La Liga had already handed out a fine to Barcelona for the previous financial year of 2021/22.

Indeed, as reported in January earlier this year, La Liga had issued the Catalans a penalty of €800,000 due to FFP breaches in three cases – the signings of Dani Alves and Andreas Christensen, and the contract renewal of Ronald Araujo.

Barcelona had immediately decided to appeal against all three charges to the RFEF second-instance committee and now according to a report from ARA, the Catalans have emerged triumphant in one of their three appeals.

As per the report, Barcelona’s appeal over the charges in the Christensen case has been upheld, meaning they are now exempt from paying the €216,000 fine pertaining to the charges with regard to the Danish international.

La Liga had issued a fine on Barça for FFP breaches with regard to Christensen’s salary during the 2021/2022 season, despite the fact that his signing was completed officially only on July 4, 2022, at which point the new financial year had already started.

But, the league had alleged that Christensen’s signing was completed months before the official announcement was made and had thus considered him to be a part of Barcelona’s workforce for the 2021/22 financial year itself.

However, La Liga’s case has been thrown out and Barcelona’s appeal on the Christensen case has been upheld as there is no clarity in the league’s regulations on situations like these.

Hence, owing to the legal principle of ‘in dubio, pro reo’ (in case of doubt, always in favor of the accused), Barcelona have won the appeal and will not have to pay the €216,000 fine pertaining to the Christensen case.

As for the matter with Alves’ signing and Araujo’s extension, decisions are awaited.