Andrea Radrizzani has negotiated a genius clause for Leeds United – Our View

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For all intents and purposes, Barcelona are out of the Champions League.

If Inter Milan beat either Viktoria Plzen or Bayern Munich, Barca will be eliminated, and even then, Barca would need to win both of their games to have a chance of qualifying.

The reality is that Barca are very likely to be eliminated from Europe’s elite competition at the group stages once again, and this will incur some serious financial ramifications.

The Champions League is the big money-maker in European football, and even if La Blaugrana drop into the Europa League and win that competition, they won’t earn as much as they would have if they’d qualified from their Champions League group.

So Barcelona won’t be making as much money, but their problems lie much deeper than that.

The problem is that Barca already had a budget in place for next year, projecting a quarter-final place in the Champions League, and after selling off so many of their assets last summer to fund a transfer trolley dash, they may find themselves in real trouble.

If Barca’s finances go belly-up once again, that will affect plenty of teams throughout Europe who are still owed cash for big-money transfers that have been paid in instalments.

One such team is Leeds United.

The Whites, of course, sold Raphinha to Barcelona this summer, and that deal is set to be paid in three instalments.

The first instalment has been paid, but the next two may be up in the air after this Champions League exit.

Luckily, Leeds United are a club that know a thing or two about financial mismanagement, so they’ve accounted for this possibility.

Indeed, Andrea Radizzani inserted a €10m (£8m) penalty clause into this deal that would lead to Barcelona owing more for Raphinha if they miss any payments.

Of course, in an ideal world, Barca will pay-off their debts to Leeds, but if they don’t, Leeds could stand to gain an extra £8m on this deal, which while it wouldn’t be beneficial immediately, wouldn’t be the worst outcome in the long-term.

Radrizzani was smart enough to see that Barca’s downfall was on the horizon, and Leeds may be very grateful that the Italian brokered such a clause in the Raphinha sale.