BarcelonaIt is associated with the Barçagate, but through the microphones of the What are you playing at? de la Cadena SER these three journalists have also explained day by day many of the news that have shaken Barça in recent years. They have now turned their information into a book about what happened at the club between Neymar’s farewell and Messi’s farewell.
Is it different to write a book compared to your day-to-day journalism?
— Sique Rodriguez: You can rest the book. We wanted to introduce a lot of anecdotes, curiosities that would help explain what happened. It was our obsession. When you ask someone that we are making a book, they are more eager to talk, the weather is calmer; when the corpse is still hot it is difficult for people to speak.
— Adrià Soldevila: In fact, one of the issues I was denied in my day was hard work. And then, making the book, the same person confirmed to me that it was true. It was the subject of the change of chair of President Quim Torra in the market, in the last league match. The next day Bartomeu lied viciously to Mònica Terribas on Catalunya Ràdio and said that the protocol of the market had changed. I was kicked out of the newspaper The world because my manager believed the club version and not mine.
Speaking of anecdotes: they describe how the players arrived an hour late at an event with Rakuten because they were playing a board game on the bus.
— S.R.: When I talk about anecdotes, that’s how they help explain the level of menphotism in the club and the power that the players had.
— Sergi Escudero: No manager or executive had the courage to say, “Come down now, because the club’s main sponsor is waiting for us.” The players believed themselves with the power to arrive an hour late at the event because they were playing parchment.
Does this power of the players begin with Bartomeu or before?
— A.S.: With him. He makes a series of decisions that weaken him: he starts to change sports director, coach, when he leaves Neymar renews everyone like crazy … He thinks that these operations make him strong and on the contrary, they weaken him because the players take advantage of it. A person close to Bartomeu told us: the most selfish people in the world are the players, and the second ones are the former players.
Footballers detect this fear.
— S.R.: A player, in fact, recognizes this in the book: they knew that Bartomeu would say yes to them, because he treated them with fear, and they took advantage of it.
Did they go with the handbrake for fear that something would happen to Bartomeu?
— IF: If Bartomeu does not appear on the cover, it is because, according to journalistic criteria, we believe that there was more than one person in charge. If we put his name on it, it was like putting a gun to his head and having someone shoot him.
How would you define the former president?
— S.R.: He managed with fear. A Barça president needs to be a leader, communicate well and surround himself with powerful people. Bartholomew was not a leader, he did not communicate well, he did not surround himself with powerful people.
An example of this fear is the contracts of the players: Messi went from ten million to 138 in ten years.
— S.R.: We wanted to give this example because it is the bravest, the untouchable. Staff inflation is born under the umbrella of Messi. After him they all come.
Is Bartomeu aware of this now?
— S.R.: I doubted that Bartomeu wanted to be president. The opportunity was given to him by Rosell, who was between Faus and him, because he was the first vice-president and even a friendlier, friendlier face. And then maybe he took a liking to the post, but I don’t think his big life goal was to be president.
Who is Òscar Grau?
— A.S.: The most malleable general manager Barça has had in many years. For the president and an adviser to the president called Jaume Masferrer. Grau is nice in the deal, but he is not brilliant in his work and will never build a strategic plan for the club.
— S.R.: The best definition of Oscar Grau as general manager is that he was a great handball player.
— IF: He himself, in the statements of Barçagate, says that everything was imposed on him from above, and who was he to say no.
And shouldn’t he have resigned, then?
— S.R.: God does not resign here either.
Who is Masferrer?
— S.R.: It has a Rasputin point.
— A.S.: He is a toxic person. He can serve as an outsider, but it doesn’t work to lead a team because the team ends up intoxicated and wants to kill him.
— IF: Masferrer looked for who the mole of Barçagate was and kept asking a lot of people, until a high official told him: “It could have been anyone from the club because right now everyone hates you”.
Without Masferrer, would the term have ended?
— S.R.: It would be simplistic to say yes because, without him, Bartomeu would not have been president, it helped him a lot. It is not fair to take full responsibility for him, in many things he served as Bartomeu’s shield: Masferrer did not sign Coutinho for 160 million, Dembélé for 145 or Griezmann for 135.
Does it bother you that they are always associated with Barçagate?
— IF: The comparison bothers me because news like this I think happens once in a lifetime. If they expect us to post something of the same level as Laporta, we probably won’t be able to.
Have they been put in an ism in the trench warfare surrounding the club?
— A.S.: When Bartholomew ruled we were porters. When Laporta returns we can’t be Bartomeuists, we have to be plumbers, we are in his trenches, and when Víctor Font rules, if he ever gets there, what will we be? Farristes (by Jordi Farré)?
What role has Sandro Rosell played?
— A.S.: I refuse to talk about bartorosellismo, seen with perspective are two different mandates. Rosell loves Bartomeu very much, but he disagrees with the way he has managed the club.
Did Rosell rule in the shadows?
— S.R.: In some things yes, in others no. It is impossible for him to control what happened when he spent two years in prison.
They explain that the big deals with Rakuten and Nike have a dark side.
— A.S.: The deal with Rakuten is very good, but they could have had a lot more revenue with sponsors than Rakuten vetoed.
— IF: About 70. And with Nike, many executives say the deal was a chestnut. They are the two most hated chords within the club. In terms of numbers they sound good, but when you go to the small print and see the clauses there are impediments.
Has journalism done its job in recent years?
— A.S.: The important issues of Bartholomew’s tenure have always come to light and not just with us.
— IF: And before his resignation.
