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“If Barça’s elections are not held, it will be a fraud in democracy” (Xavi Hernández Navarro)

“It would be a democratic fraud not to hold these elections. Barça need to end the misgovernment it has now, take advantage of the winter market … There are enough measures, and even more could be taken, to ensure the participation of the 45,000 members who will go to the polls “, said the candidate in the Barça elections, Joan Laporta, at the event he organized this Wednesday to present his economic program.

He was accompanied at his polling station by Joan Casas, former dean of the College of Economists of Catalonia; Jaume Giró, a member of its board, and Àlex Barbany, a businessman with a long career in the world of entertainment.

Before going into the subject, Casas made a brief diagnosis of the club’s financial situation: “We sense the starting point, but we don’t have all the information. Barça is carrying out an activity with its own and external capital. And currently the most of its resources are external, which increases indebtedness.The financial structure we have is built mainly with debt, so future projects must be well-designed in the financial field.It cannot be that the club has 1 billion unprofitable revenue. “

Giró, a businessman who has worked at La Caixa, Gas Natural and Repsol, has focused his presentation on controlling spending and reducing the debt of an entity that, according to him, has been a victim “since 2017 of the curse of the sudden wealth after the transfer of Neymar for 222 million euros “. “Barça has not made a profit on its turnover because sports planning has not gone hand in hand with the economy. It has paid sports salaries above the average that was being paid to other leading clubs in the world,” he said. argued.

The tip of this payroll is embodied by Leo Messi, who ended his contract in June and has not yet announced his intentions. On this circumstance, Giró read as follows: “The wage bill has grown so surely for lack of a winning and leadership project, which we must now prioritize. If we manage to make an exciting project, we probably will not be able to be the highest paying club in the world, but we will have elements to convince the players “.

Giró explained that his short-term plan is to contain the cost of operational management – which does not correspond to the payroll – until the 22/23 academic year. It also proposes a staffing plan “with sporting, economic and long-term vision” to avoid the need for operations to save the accounts – Arthur and Cillessen – and stop recent star signings with little return to the turf. “In the last ten years the club has invested 1.6 billion euros in signings, 980 of which in the last three years,” he recalled.

Another important aspect that Giró has explained is the issuance of debt in two ways. One with good ones aimed at fans around the world “who want to help lower the tensions we currently have.” And another “institutional”, aimed at professional investors, regulated by the CNMV and which would return in three years. “With that we would pay off near maturities and we could not stop investing,” he predicted.

The concept of Barça Experience Center

As for the search for new income, Àlex Barbany believes that Barça “should change the chip a bit” and seek to be a reference in the world of entertainment, exploiting the Barça brand, which, according to him, is “the ‘most important club asset’. “Barça have achieved the emotional impact, but they have to work on how to monetize this feeling,” he added.

On sponsors, Barbany proposes “regaining their trust,” regaining the sponsor “ premium“, which will be between the main and the global ones, and a strategy to” increase in three years a 50% of the income for sponsors up to 250 million “. Barbany also spoke of making the Barça Academy” more universal “, more “from the social point of view and not so much from the economic point of view”, and to build Barça Experience Centers in the capitals of the world. “We refuse to think that the globalization of the club passes only through digital channels”, he justified .

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