LaLiga blocks Carvajal's Getafe move over fears of hidden-payment scheme

LaLiga has blocked Dani Carvajal’s proposed transfer to Getafe after the league’s financial control committee deemed his declared salary wildly unrealistic, according to Spanish radio show El Larguero. The 34-year-old full-back, who left Real Madrid as a free agent at the end of last season, had reached an agreement in principle with the southern Madrid club.

Getafe submitted documentation proposing an annual salary of approximately €400,000 for Carvajal — a figure LaLiga’s economic regulators rejected outright. The league’s own records indicate the defender was earning around €10 million per year at the Santiago Bernabéu, making the proposed wage a drop of roughly 96 per cent.

Under LaLiga’s Squad Cost Limit rules, the league assigns its own baseline valuations to high-profile players to prevent clubs from under-reporting playing costs. The concern is that a club could declare a low official salary while supplementing a player’s income through off-the-books commercial deals, undisclosed image-rights agreements, or third-party sponsorship arrangements that never appear in club accounts.

The decision draws a direct parallel with the financial charges currently surrounding Manchester City. Among the 114 alleged Premier League rule breaches brought against the club, a significant element involves secret secondary payments — specifically, accusations that the club supplemented former manager Roberto Mancini’s official salary with a separate consultancy contract at Abu Dhabi-based side Al Jazira, effectively shifting a portion of his true earnings off City’s books.

LaLiga’s intervention is designed to ensure Spanish clubs cannot use similar side-agreements to circumvent domestic squad spending limits and undermine competitive balance across the division.

Getafe manager José Bordalás had been eager to add a six-time Champions League winner to his squad, but the transfer remains on hold unless the club can restructure the deal to satisfy the league’s economic requirements. Until then, Carvajal’s next move remains unresolved — an early test case of how aggressively LaLiga intends to police its own financial framework.