Keith Wyness reveals how much Birmingham City will really make from Barcelona friendly - 'I've dealt with them before'

Birmingham City stand to make at least £1million from their pre-season friendly against Barcelona.

That is according to former Aston Villa chief executive Keith Wyness, speaking exclusively to Football Insider, who believes that the status boost and excitement surrounding the game are the biggest wins for the Blues.

The second city outfit recently confirmed the date for their clash with the Spanish giants, which will take place at St Andrew's on 31 July.

Wyness has suggested that the fixture won't be "game-changing" for Birmingham in a financial sense and called upon his previous experience of dealing with Barcelona.

The Catalan club recently became back-to-back La Liga champions and are one of the world's most prestigious clubs, with five Champions League titles to their name.

Wyness is clear that while the fixture is hugely exciting for Birmingham and their fans, attracting Barcelona for a game comes at a hefty price.

Barcelona lay out 'rules' for pre-season friendly

Villa's former chief Wyness - who served as CEO at Villa Park between 2016 and 2018 and now runs a consultancy business advising elite clubs - has warned that Barcelona will have charged Birmingham significant fees for their involvement.

The former boardroom man made it clear that the Blaugrana put specific "rules" in place for friendly matches behind the scenes, including a sizeable fee for their travel.

Speaking on the latest edition of Football Insider's Inside Track podcast, he outlined the hidden fees that come with a clash against the elite club.

"Quite a glamour fixture for Birmingham, certainly a statement of intent, but I don't really think they're going to be getting that much money out of this, to be honest," Wyness said.

"I've dealt with Barcelona on friendlies before in the past, I know the rules and sort of the things that they want, and there'll be a charge for them playing at Birmingham, so there'll be a cost for getting the team there.

"It'll be up to Birmingham to maximise the revenue on their streaming services worldwide and obviously on the matchday, there'll be big hospitality packages and all sorts of events around it as well.

"I think if Birmingham are lucky, they may make about £1m profit out of the whole thing, so it's not game-changing in terms of the money.

"It will be an interesting friendly to play in. I don't know if Lamine Yamal will be back or not. I don't know what the conditions of the friendly are. I would doubt those players would be stipulated. 

"Once you take away Barcelona's fee for turning up, I would expect maybe £1m, possibly just a little bit more than that for Birmingham. But it's more about the status and the excitement this will bring to the club."

Birmingham agree deal for Marcus Bignot

Football Insider revealed on Sunday that Birmingham have agreed a deal for Marcus Bignot to become their new U18s coach.

The 51-year-old has previously managed the Blues' women's team, and is now set to return after leaving his role as Swindon Town's assistant manager back in May.

The former right-back has now accepted an offer to become the lead coach of Birmingham's U18s phase, and is vastly experienced coaching at academy level.

Bignot has previously held roles within the England setup at both U18 and U19 levels, and now appears set to take his coaching talents to Birmingham.