Ferran Torres has joined Barcelona, but his debut is unclear as club tries to creatively work around debt

“We’re back!”

Joan Laporta was in a bullish mood, which is the mood he’s in most days, but especially on days like this. It was the first day of the rest of their lives, sunny morning in the city. Up in the stands at the Camp Nou were 13,513 people, optimism returning. On the pitch below them, the Barcelona president, who started singing when he was last down there presenting Dani Alves and Xavi Hernandez, was beaming, ready to take on the world. Or so he said.

This was a big deal. Ferran Torres had just joined Barcelona for a transfer fee of €55 million, plus €10m in add-ons. Aged 21 and long seen as the country’s outstanding player of his age group, he’d come from Manchester City, no less. Destined, some said, to lead Spain’s forward line for the next decade, Torres has already scored 12 international goals, including a hat-trick against Germany, at a rate better than a goal every other game. His salary is understood to be structured to reach something the region of €12.5m per year.

It wasn’t the first big signing of Laporta’s second spell at the club, but it felt like it. And it wouldn’t be the last.

That’s what Laporta said, anyway.

If Torres’ arrival suggested a shift, a signing they could genuinely get excited about — a properly good player they’d persuaded to join and who you could still see there in 10 years’ time — then Laporta’s words shouted about it. So much so that when he was asked about the arrival that would be transformative, the player everyone wants, the signing that would say look at us and guarantee that everyone did just that, he didn’t back down. Could Erling Haaland join too? “Everything’s possible,” Laporta said.

If that sounds a little noncommittal, he didn’t say no, which was entirely deliberate. What he did say was this: “We’re still players in the market. Everyone had better get ready because we’re back, and with the desire to do good things. We’ve got our status back. The resurgence of Barcelona is a reality.”

That might depend on how you define “resurgence,” when it becomes a reality.

You know all this by now, so let’s get through it quickly: Barcelona are over €1.35 billion in debt; they lost €481m last year alone; they were forced to let Lionel Messi go and for free; and this season their salary-cap space, their budget, in other words, is €97.7m. That’s an eighth the size of Real Madrid’s and lower than Real Sociedad’s, Athletic Club’s and Villarreal’s. Let’s not even look at England, where a team like Watford has as much muscle. And so the inevitable, recurring question was asked: How? How could they sign Haaland?

In fact, never mind Haaland, how could they sign Torres?

The short answer is: They can’t. Not really. Not yet.

Everything’s possible, Laporta had said, but at the moment not everything is possible. And that includes registering Torres. By Sunday it should be, said the club’s director of football, Mateu Alemany. Torres has tested positive for COVID-19 and is recovering from an injury, so it may not need to be that fast, but either way the answer is: soon. That is what they hope, at least. And there is a plan. The problem is that hopes have a horrible habit of not being fulfilled and the best-laid plans gang aft agley and all that.

If Torres was fit and there was a league game tomorrow, Barcelona would not be able to play him. And so, to return to the question: How did Barcelona manage to sign Ferran Torres?

There are two parts to the answer. The first is the cost of the signing itself, and that’s easily explained. Barcelona won’t pay much of the fee up front, the salary is spread across his contract, and the club have taken a €600m loan from Goldman Sachs, the same bank that will provide a further €1.5bn for the redevelopment of Barcelona’s new stadium.

So where does the money come from? That’s where. In footballing terms, meanwhile, they believe this is a signing that they cannot really afford not to do, even if his value has effectively doubled since he went to England.

That’s the first part — actually signing him — and it’s quite simple. The second part — registering him so he can actually play — is the league’s salary limit criteria.

To review, there are two different things, conceptually and practically: There’s having the money to do it, and there’s fulfilling the criteria to be able to do it now. The salary limit part is more complex — on some levels, anyway. On others, it’s very simple, and very rigid: If you do not comply with the rules, you will not be able to register your player. End of story. It’s an automated system, and that button you want to click on will not be clickable.

Barcelona’s permitted salary limit is €97.7m calculated on the basis of what they spend and generate. It’s not that they are right at the limit; they’re miles over it, with the actual amount spent on salaries over €400m. This tends to lead people to suggest that the rules are pointless as they bemoan another big club just ignoring financial fair play. The questions are inevitable: What’s the point if they can still sign players? What’s the point if they can be at four times their permitted salary limit without it having any tangible impact?

First, it’s not without consequence; these are not rules simply ignored and unenforced, nor are financial difficulties long term entirely ignored. Not now, anyway. In the summer, you may remember, they lost the best player in their entire history — someone named Lionel Messi — for free. Whatever other elements were at play, everyone can surely agree that’s quite a big impact. Antoine Griezmann left too, also for free. (For now, at least: There is a €40m purchase clause applicable a year on.) The summer before, Luis Suarez left for free — and won the league at Atletico Madrid. Gerard Pique and Sergio Busquets took pay cuts. Without Pique’s drop, Memphis Depay wouldn’t have been able to play the opening game of the 2021-22 season.