La Liga preview: Can Barcelona challenge Real Madrid after post-Lionel Messi revamp?

By Matias Grez, CNN

Updated 1057 GMT (1857 HKT) August 11, 2022

Despite still finding itself in deep financial trouble, Barcelona has spent around $160 million this summer.

(CNN)There has been one question that has left fans of European football scratching their heads this summer: just how is Barcelona signing all of these players?

The club's dire financial state has been public knowledge for more than two years now; a combination of financial mismanagement, extortionate player wages and the Covid pandemic led to Barça finding itself well over a billion dollars in debt.Drastic action was taken in an attempt to begin balancing the books, including a player fire sale, the cutting of the squad's wages and, the most damning of all, letting Lionel Messi — the greatest player in the club's history — leave the club for free.Despite these efforts, last season the Catalan giant still had to cut the squad's wage bill in order to register any of its new signings.Most predicted that this summer the club would have to remain frugal to continue untangling itself from these financial constraints entirely of its own making, but that hasn't been the case.Read MoreBarcelona has now spent around $160 million on player transfers and signed some of European football's most coveted players, including Robert Lewandowski, Jules Koundé and Raphinha.Robert Lewandowski is one of three high-profile signings Barcelona has made this summer.As Bayern Munich boss Julien Nagelsmann recently described it: "[Barcelona] is the only club in the world that have no money, but then buy all the players they want. I don't know how they do it. It's a bit strange, a bit crazy."However, in the short team at least, fears around the club's inability to register its new