Gavi lost his status as a Barca first team player

Gavi returns to competition wearing the number 30 shirt.

Last September, Barca agreed to give the 18-year-old midfielder a new contract, bringing his salary closer to that of his young teammates such as Pedri, Ansu Fati or Ronald Araujo and valid until 2026. He was also given the iconic number 6 shirt worn by Coach Xavi Hernandez when he played for Barcelona.

With this move, Gavi will officially become a first-team player and no longer play as a youth player at Barcelona. However, La Liga prevented this from happening. The reason is that Gavi's new salary is not in the budget for the 2022/23 season that Barca is allowed to pay.

Therefore, Gavi was forced to return to play as a Juvenil A player, Barca's youth team. The official La Liga website also stripped Gavi of the number 6 shirt when updating the squad list of the Camp Nou club. From this point on, the Spanish midfielder will play with the number 30 shirt. Gavi, of course, cannot receive the new salary in the contract signed in September.

Marcarevealed that Barca had actually successfully registered Gavi on January 31. However, La Liga filed an appeal, claiming that Barca had not registered on time. The court immediately ruled in La Liga's favor. But since no specific decision had been made at the time, Gavi was allowed to continue playing as a first-team player with the number 6 shirt on his back. It is only now that La Liga has fully succeeded in stripping Gavi of his first-team status.

Signing a new contract with Barca would mean a big increase in Gavi's income. But Article 101 of La Liga's regulations on team budgets states: "A player may only sign a new contract mid-season if his parent club has received the consent of the governing body." And La Liga disagrees.

In addition, the total new salary must not exceed the limit that the team has registered for the following season, which is something Barca cannot meet if they register Gavi with the new contract terms.

Gavi was forced to give up the number 6 shirt. Photo:Reuters

Gavi will have to continue playing for Barca under his old contract until the end of the summer of 2024 as a youth team player. However, the Spanish international's contract has a clause that allows him to leave Camp Nou as a free agent in the summer of 2023 if he is not registered in the first team. This is something that makes Barca very worried because a series of European giants are eyeing this 19-year-old prodigy.

In 2020, Gavi, then 16 years old, signed his first professional contract with Barca. The contract was for 4 years but the release clause was only 50 million euros. In September 2022, Barca extended the contract with Gavi for the second time until the summer of 2026 and attached a contract termination clause of up to 1 billion euros to protect this young star from other clubs.

The young star, born in 2004, has played more than 80 matches, starting for both Barca and the Spanish national team. He also played well at the recent World Cup and is currently valued at 90 million euros, making him the 11th most expensive player in the world according to Transfermarkt.