La Liga president, Javier Tebas, has confirmed that Barcelona will not be able to sign players this summer transfer window.
Tebas said this at the FT Business of Football summit in London on Thursday, as per Martin Lipton of The Sun.
Barcelona spent in excess of €150 million last summer on signing the likes of Raphinha, Robert Lewandowski and Jules Kounde, while Franck Kessie, Hector Bellerin, Andreas Christensen, and Marcos Alonso arrived at Camp Nou on free transfers.
Barcelona were under pressure to reduce their squad last summer but only managed to offload Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Philippe Coutinho, while another high-earner, Memphis Depay, joined Atletico Madrid in January.
However, according to Tebas, Barcelona will be stopped from registering new players until more players are offloaded.
Tebas said, “As of today, Barcelona doesn’t have any room in its budget to spend in the upcoming transfer window.
“Barcelona has been involved in questionable behaviour, which has had an impact on La Liga and we are acting accordingly.
“We have ruled that they can no longer sign more players.
“They have to reduce their investment in players and we have encouraged them to sell players because for every amount they raise in sales they can spend 40 per cent of that.”