Atletico Madrid beat Barcelona to £43million windfall despite BOTH clubs going out of Champions League on same night
BARCELONA have missed out on £43million following their Champions League exit.
Paris Saint-Germain came from behind against ten-man Barca to knock them out in the quarter-finals on Tuesday.
The result means Barcelona miss out on the 2025 Club World Cup.
The tournament expands from four clubs to 32 next year with 12 teams from Europe qualifying.
But a maximum of two teams are permitted from each country and with Champions League winners from 2021-24 getting a place, that means Real Madrid have already qualified.
The second spot from Spain was being contested between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, who also exited the Champions League on Tuesday after losing to Borussia Dortmund.
But Diego Simeone’s side will head to the Club World Cup as they have a high Uefa co-efficient ranking than Barca, with a score of 67 compared to 60.
And with qualification comes a £43m windfall for all participating clubs, with the winner set to cash in on an additional £80m.
Barcelona also miss out on £10.6m which they would have received for reaching the Champions League semi-final.
That is bad news for the club who are still struggling financially and need to slash their wage bill by £57m.
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LaLiga announced the Blaugrana would be having their permitted salary limit cut down from £231m to 174m for the 2024/25 season.
With the club’s real squad cost – the total of salaries and transfer amortisations – for this season officially budgeted at £421m, they are some way over budget and will need to make significant cuts.