“They don’t want members, they want clients”. Or why Barça’s next assembly smells very bad.

By Albert Ortega. Barcelona

Barça will be holding its ordinary general assembly of delegate members on 21 October. A vital conclave to vote on the liquidation of the financial year corresponding to the 2022-23 season, as well as the budget for the 2023-24 campaign. These are not the only hot points on the agenda, as the board headed by Joan Laporta will have to report on the current situation of Espai Barça. Despite the fact that the government’s Council of Ministers declared the end of the covid-19 health crisis and eliminated the obligatory use of masks last June, the Barça board has decided to carry out a crucial act telematically. It is an exception in Spanish football.

The club, therefore, will emulate last year’s assembly… also telematically. A decision that clashes head-on with that of the other three member-owned clubs, such as Real Madrid, Athletic Club de Bilbao and Club Atlético Osasuna. The question, therefore, is why Barça chooses to alienate its members on the one day of the year when they can show, face to face, their disapproval of Barça’s current economic direction, question the measures implemented and approve or censure its management.

Barça’s response? The choice is based on “saving costs”. According to the digital newspaper Culemanía, “the club has calculated the cost of the telematic assembly at around 300,000 euros. This amount would have been double, some 600,000 euros, if the assembly had been held in person”. The initiative has provoked anger among a sector of the Barcelonistas, who point to a lack of transparency and an attempt to torpedo the questions and answers.

“There are no excuses”. The former member of the Espai Barça committee, Jaume Llopis, assures El Confidencial that the decision to hold the assembly telematically is “to save questions, not money. This board of directors wants clients, not members. And that is intolerable”. Meanwhile, the third candidate in the 2021 elections, Toni Freixa, remarks that “there is no justification, beyond depriving the members of intervening and deliberating. There is no possible excuse”.

Other members, such as Dolors Saballs Cabello, number 26522, sent a letter to the club, also published by Culemanía, in which she stated: “What are you afraid of? Why don’t you want to come face to face with those who on paper are the masters of the club? What do you want to hide? The whole thing is so pitiful that I don’t want to use rude words to describe it. You don’t need to fill your mouths with the statement that Barça belongs to its members. This is simply a lie”.

A curious justification. Especially when Barça’s accounts show that the net profit of 304 million euros would have been impossible without the levers activated in the summer of 2022, such as the sale of 15% of the television rights to Sixth Street for 25 years in exchange for 400 million and the sale of 49.9% of Barça Studios for another 200 million to Orpheus Media (Jaume Roures) and Socios.com. Furthermore, it should be remembered that, were it not for the sale of 25% of the national television rights to Sixth Street and the accounting of 100% of the value of Barça Vision, the Blaugrana operation continues to have a hole that would reach 200 million euros and losses of 341 million euros without levers.

The accounts are worrying The past financial year also shows that the payment of sporting salaries soared by 41% year-on-year and was 3% higher than expected at 562 million euros. Barça claims that this increase, which was already foreseen, is due to “the arrival of new members of the squad, as well as the indemnities and agreements derived from the departures of the main historic players of the squad”.

The bottom line highlights the higher expenditure on corporate staff (63.8 million, up 9%). Management explained that this corresponds to “covering the needs derived from the significant increase in ordinary income”. Of this figure, 5.9 million is for the management committee and senior management staff, which has increased from 17 to 24". On the other hand, FC Barcelona announced last August the resale of 29.5% of Barça Visión to Libero and Nipa Capital for 120 million euros in a deal dubbed repalanca. On the same day, it announced a merger agreement with Mountain & Co. I Acquisition Corp so that Barça Vision and Barça Media could be listed on the Nasdaq, the US stock exchange.

In the communiqué issued by Barça, it was explained that the deal would have to be approved by both the club’s assembly of delegates and the members of the Swiss-based SPAC. However, Barça Vision’s IPO is not on the agenda after the deal could not yet be completed as the 40 million euros from Libero have not landed. Another issue to analyse would be the discrepancy between the club, Jaume Roures and Socios.com, where Roures revealed on Què T’hi Jugues that “no payment was postponed, as I fulfilled my contract. The objective was to register the players (with the 20 million euros initial payment) and that was achieved”.

Finally, there remains the hot potato of the Palau Blaugrana. In 2021, the assembly approved an investment and cost plan for the execution of the Espai Barça works in the following terms: 900 million euros for the future Camp Nou; 20 million for the Johan Cruyff stadium; 60 million for the modification of the General Metropolitan Plan; 100 million for the urbanisation of the surrounding area and the Campus Barça, and 420 million for the new Palau Blaugrana.

However, at the press conference last April on the financing of the Espai Barça, the club’s corporate director, Maribel Meléndez, pointed out that “The 420 million euros for the Nou Palau plus the Pista de Gel will come from the contingencies of 200 million euros plus the interest that was not earmarked for the Espai Barça (179 million) and the 50 million more that could be issued”. Later this summer, Laporta responded to reports of a possible further postponement of the pavilion project. “There is a budget for the Palau. First we were thinking of a mega-Palau, but there is no need,” said Laporta in an interview for the Esport3 channel. “Everything is planned with the 1.472 million. There was talk that some Americans wanted to build a 400 million Palau, but it’s not necessary. We can build a Palau for 200 million. The Palau will be built”, he specified. For the moment, there is no news or dates on the construction of the Palau Blaugrana… at half the price.