(Bloomberg) -- FC Barcelona won permission from Spain’s top football competition LaLiga to spend more on its squad after the club shored up its beleaguered finances with a string of asset sales.

LaLiga has set a new limit for how much the club can spend on its group of players of 656 million euros ($659 million), Javier Gomez, the competition’s director general, said at a news conference in Madrid on Friday. 

That’s a big step up from the previous cap applied earlier this year, when Barcelona was the only club in Spain’s top league to have its spending limit set at below zero. 

LaLiga slapped the restriction on the iconic club after it ran up debts and future liabilities of 1.35 billion euros as costs on buying and paying star players soared while ticket and merchandising revenues ran dry during the pandemic. Under those spending limits, the Catalan club could only invest 25% of what it saved from shifting a player off its current wage bill, severely limiting its ability to pay for new signings.

The situation prompted Barcelona President Joan Laporta to sell off chunks of the club’s assets to raise funds to patch up its finances.

Barcelona sold 25% of its media rights for 25 years to San Francisco-based investment firm Sixth Street Partners in two transaction in June and July, booking a 667 million-euro gain. 

The club raised an additional $203 million from the sale of 49% of its unprofitable Barcelona of its unprofitable content production arm Barcelona Studios in two separate transactions. Barcelona also sealed a long-term sponsorship agreement with streaming giant Spotify Technology SA in March.

That allowed the team to sign new players, including Polish striker Robert Lewandowski and Brazilian winger Raphinha. 

Barcelona has also managed to narrow the spending gap with arch-rival Real Madrid, whose limit has been set at 683 million euros. The cap for Atletico de Madrid is 341 millon euros, while Sevilla FC’s limit is 200 million euros. 

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