Barcelona will be on a date today, Tuesday, with a decisive confrontation when it receives Benfica in the penultimate round of the group stage of the Champions League, and the match will be important on the sporting and economic level for the Catalan club, which will not bear another stumbling whose repercussions may extend to aspects beyond football.
Barcelona is second in Group E with 6 points, two points behind Benfica, and winning will be the only option for the team trained by Xavi Hernandez in order to ensure qualification and avoid reducing the team's chances of qualifying for the next round.
The Spanish newspaper "SPORT" stated that the sports bet, which will be an incentive for the players today in order to win and ensure qualification, is followed by an economic bet that the club's management is looking forward to.
The newspaper pointed out that the administration has set within its plans to reach the quarter-finals as a minimum in order to take advantage of the financial rewards in strengthening the budget of the debt-burdened team.
She pointed out that any result other than qualification will confuse the club's financial accounts and will further complicate the economic crisis the team is going through, which prevents it from moving comfortably in the transfer market to sign new players.
The administration has built its plans to obtain about 26 million euros from participating in the Champions League if it reaches the quarter-finals, an amount that includes qualification bonuses for each role in addition to bonuses based on the results of each match.
The early exit from the Champions League will also cause the club to decline in the club’s ranking among the continent’s teams, according to which the European Football Association (FIFA) determines the share of each team from the revenues it distributes at a value of 600 million euros, and the share of the lowest teams reaches about one million euros, and the amount rises to 36 million Euros for the team that tops the standings.
Outside of all these calculations, the club's name and reputation will be the most affected in the event of a loss from Benfica, who will rise to second place and will be the closest to resolving the qualification, since it will host the bottom of the standings, Dynamo Kyiv of Ukraine, while Barcelona will face a difficult task against leaders Bayern Munich, who secured his qualification from the last round.