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It appears that Leeds United, Barcelona and Raphinha have finalised terms regarding the Brazilian star’s transfer, but that doesn’t mean the deal is around the corner.

That’s according to El Chiringuito, who make it clear, via their journalist Jota Jordi, ‘that the agreement between clubs and player is closed’.

However, he immediately makes it clear that while this might be the case, ‘all operations that Barcelona are going to do’ depend on ‘the levers’.

Now, this is where it gets tricky, because we all know the La Liga giants are in a terrible financial position, but they are doing their utmost to bring in income so they can give Xavi Hernandez some new players.

For example, Leeds’ Raphinha will not be cheap, and while some player sales from Barcelona’s end could certainly help, they aren’t enough to cover his transfer.

There’s even been talk that while Franck Kessie and Andreas Christensen have been presented, they still can’t technically be registered by the club.

It’s believed they will be able to do so in due time, but there are a number of steps that need to happen before that’s the case.

Sport published an article a week or so back explaining just how Barcelona are getting money in to sort out their finances, and it basically comes from selling parts of some of their businesses and the revaluation of some land.

The first one, which has already been announced, was the sale of 10% of their TV rights to the Sixth Street fund for the next 25 years, who paid €207.5m up front to recoup €267m by the end of the agreement.

This was done to help ‘close the balance of the 2021/22 season with profits and to alleviate part of the debt and reduce negative funds’, but it still ‘would be insufficient on its own to address new signings’.

The second lever also involves TV rights, with another investment group set to get 15% of the TV revenue by paying ‘a figure that will range between €330-400m’.

The third comes through the sale ‘of the minority part of the rights of Barça Licensing and Merchandising (BLM)’, with a maximum share of 49.9% being sold for an estimated €200m.

The fourth would be a similar deal, but this time for Barça Studios, once again with a maximum of 49.9% being sold for a similar fee of around €200m.

Finally, there’s the fifth, which stems from Barcelona’s requests ‘to update the value of the assets of FC Barcelona’, which includes the Camp Nou, the Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper and basically everything the club own in terms of land.

Sport state that ‘currently, all this heritage is valued at around €150m’, but with an update, ‘the value of all those club assets is expected to rise to an amount close to €400m’.

While that doesn’t necessarily mean income, the difference ‘would cause the club’s negative equity to be reduce by almost half’.

So, that’s how Barcelona are trying to sort out their finances, and yes, the sums sound impressive, but ‘it must be taken into account that not all the money listed would be computed as direct income’.

They use the Sixth Street deal as an example, pointing out that of the €207.5m, ‘only 15% can be used to extend the salary budget’, and 70% will be used ‘to improve the infrastructure’.

As for the final 15%, they will be allocated ‘to clear part of the club’s debt, which is currently around €1.3bn’.

Now, back to Leeds United and Raphinha, with the main catch being that all the aforementioned deals aren’t happening at once, which is exactly what Jota Jordi was trying to make clear.

Basically, Barcelona now have to wait for other deals to close before they can spend money on the transfer market, meaning that while an agreement might have been reached with the Elland Road star and his club, they can’t fund anything just yet.

The belief is that the second deal, the one of 15% of the TV rights worth between €330-400m, is the one that will be used ‘to face the sports chapter’, suggesting the transfer market.

So, until that happens, we probably won’t see much movement on Barcelona’s transfer market, and therefore it now all depends on how patient Leeds are when it comes to the Raphinha deal.

If they’re happy to wait, then they’ll probably give the Brazilian his wish and send him far away from Elland Road to Catalonia instead of London, where Chelsea are reportedly waiting to see if they can sign the winger as well.

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