Barcelona has been fined £705,000sz for breaching La Liga's Financial Fair Play regulations.
The Spanish football club which has been struggling financially in recent years, racking up enormous debts and not even being able to register new signings, had asked first-team players to reduce their wages. They also recouped funds through selling other parts of the club such as domestic TV rights and their in-house media studio.
Though they had to adhere to a salary cap imposed by La Liga, it's been uncovered that the Catalan side violated some rules.
They reportedly violated La Liga's Financial Fair Play regulations during the signings of Dani Alves and Andreas Christensen and the contract extension for defender Ronaldo Araujo.
Barcelona Universal reported that the alleged breaches are from the 2021/22 financial year and an appeal has already been launched with the RFEF UEFA license second instance committee by Barca.
Alves and Christensen joined the club free transfers, with the former taking a sizeable wage cut to return to the Nou Camp for a second spell.
Araujo on the other hand, agreed to a contract renewal back in April, committing his future to the club for another four years with a deal that also included a €1 billion release clause.
Barcelona spent around €153 million in the summer, bringing in the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde in a bid to compete with Real Madrid again.
The financial levers allowed them to make those deals happen, but the recent development has shown that Barca won't be able to replicate those steps in the future.
La Liga president Javier Tebas told Mundo Deportivo:
"The levers have worked for them this season but not for the next one.
"They have to reduce salary mass, they cannot continue with more than €500m (£436m)."