Barcelona to Earn Millions from the World Cup

Barcelona Set for Big Payday After Sending Eight Players to the Final

FC Barcelona will pocket a significant sum from FIFA after helping put eight Spanish players into the World Cup final between Spain and Argentina. In total, 16 Barcelona-affiliated footballers began the tournament's final stage. The total amount the club will receive in the last quarter of this year for the loan of its internationals comes to €2,893,533.

Why Is the New Distribution System Paying Out Less?

On March 5, 2025, the FIFA Council approved the principles of a new distribution system in line with the renewed Memorandum of Understanding between FIFA and the European Football Clubs (EFC — the new name for the former ECA as of October 7, 2025). The total pool set aside for clubs with players at the World Cup rose 70% compared to Qatar 2022, reaching $355 million (€303.1 million). However, this fund was split into two portions: $100 million for qualifying matches and $250 million for the final tournament.

Because of this new split, Barcelona will end up earning considerably less than the €4,433,651 it received in 2022 — the reason isn't simply that the tournament expanded from 32 to 48 teams, but that the fund is now being divided among a larger pool of players.

Earnings from Qualifying Matches

For the qualifying phase, each club receives $2,362 (€2,045) per player per match for which that player was called up, whether or not they actually played. The $100 million total is divided across each national team's 23-man squad over 905 qualifying matches, plus 10 friendlies each for host nations USA, Mexico, and Canada. Barcelona secured €153,375 from matches in which its internationals were called up. Raphinha was the most-called-up player, with 13 matches bringing the club a total of €26,585 at €2,045 per match.

Daily Bonus from the Final Tournament

For the final stage, the $250 million pool translates to a daily bonus of $5,000 (€4,330) per player, calculated from the first day of assembling with their national team through the day after their last World Cup match. That daily rate stood at $10,000 (€9,768) at Qatar 2022. In 2010 — the first World Cup in which clubs earned compensation for releasing players — the rate was €1,272; it rose to €2,160 in 2014 and €7,231 in 2018.

This revenue-sharing policy was already put into practice with UEFA at the last European Championship, allowing clubs to also receive financial compensation for players called up for qualifying matches and Nations League fixtures.

Who Earns What? Payouts Vary by Contract Timeline

According to Mundo Deportivo, clubs can only receive the full €4,330 daily bonus if the player was fully registered with them for the two seasons prior to the tournament — in this case, since 2024-25. That's why only seven of Barcelona's eight Spanish World Cup players will bring in the club's top payout: Cubarsí, Eric García, Gavi, Pedri, Olmo, Ferran Torres, and Lamine Yamal — each will earn the club €225,160.

Joan García's case is different: a third of his bonus will go to Espanyol, which will receive €75,053.68 for having him on their roster during the 2024-25 season. Barcelona, meanwhile, will collect €150,106.32 from the remaining two-thirds, calculated on the basis of García being a Barcelona player throughout 2025-26 and the entire tournament. This situation mirrors that of Messi, who won the 2022 World Cup while playing for PSG — because Messi was at Barcelona during the 2020-21 season, Barcelona received €117,216 at the time, while PSG received €234,432.

Special Cases: Rashford, Cancelo, Hamza, and Gordon

The calculations get more complex for players like Marcus Rashford, Joao Cancelo, Hamza Abdelkarim, and Anthony Gordon, whose transfer or loan status changed during the season:

• Marcus Rashford: Barcelona will receive a third of the total bonus for his full 2025-26 season, plus half of the final-stage share up until June 30, when his loan from Manchester United ended — totaling €105,504.

• Joao Cancelo: Barcelona will receive half of the 2025-26 season share (as he arrived on loan in January) plus half of the World Cup share (as he officially returned to Al-Hilal on July 1) — totaling €54,414.10.

• Hamza Abdelkarim: Barcelona will receive a full third of the entire World Cup share, since his transfer was finalized before his loan spell ended in June, plus half of the 2025-26 season share, since he arrived on loan in January — totaling €94,819.56.

• Anthony Gordon: He was transferred on May 29. Had the transfer happened mid-tournament, the daily bonus would have needed to be split with Newcastle United — but since Barcelona completed the deal beforehand, they'll receive the full final-stage share. At €1,443.33 per day over 49 days, that comes to a total of €70,723.17 for Barcelona's books — a figure locked in even though Gordon scored England's goal before Messi's Argentina completed yet another comeback (1-2) to eliminate them last night.

Conclusion

Thanks to its large contingent of players at the World Cup, Barcelona will earn a total of €2.89 million from the 2026 tournament. However, due to FIFA's new distribution system and the fund being split among a larger pool of players, this figure falls short of the €4.43 million the club earned in 2022.

Source: This article is based on reporting by Sergi Solé, published in Mundo Deportivo (mundodeportivo.com).