Why does he rule so much at Laporta’s Barça?

It is not an ornamental presence. There is a coincidence, according to the sources consulted, that his weight in the big decisions of the club is decisive. In terms of influence, there is no director or executive that can be compared to him. “He sends a lot,” says a connoisseur of the Barça entrails. “No one inside has ‘pebrots’ to contradict him,” certifies another.

Last week Echevarría was seen more than ever, as accepting a focus that he had always shunned. He participated in the meal around Xavi next to John Laporta and the usual group that escorts him (you know: Enric Masip, Rafael Yustenot like that Mateu Alemanywho was on his way to Birmingham) at Sushi 99. In the same restaurant he ate lunch a day later with Laporta and Jordi Alba to flatten the departure announced this Wednesday from the side.

He has been present in the negotiation with Deco since his arrival in Barcelona (not in vain are they intimate). Also in the meeting last Wednesday in which Alemany announced that he was undoing the path traced towards England. And in a more festive way, he accompanied Laporta at the start of the rúa and at the dinner to celebrate the squad for the League. Somehow, he has stopped camouflaging himself.

but who is Alejandro Echevarria? And what is your interest in meddling in the affairs of the entity? For the preparation of his portrait, EL PERIÓDICO has spoken with a dozen people who have treated him within the club (and some outside). There is a coincidence that he has become the shadow power at Barça, the most important man in the club’s management, instrumental in a series of internal changes, especially in the section of suppliers and service companies, and also in some appointments. “He intervenes in almost everything,” says a club source.

Laporta resorts to his connections, because there are well-connected citizens in Barcelona and then, at his own level, there is Echevarría. Those who know him describe him as a smart, clever, mentally fast guy, one of those who knows how to read the play right away.

???? Jordi Alba, Joan Laporta and Alejandro Echevarría, meeting for four hours in a restaurant in Barcelona this afternoon.

???? The club asks the player for a 60% salary reduction and to agree to the deferred payment in two years (without renewing).

i ️ We tell it now in @JijantesFC pic.twitter.com/yn8y4aadOZ

— Carlos Monfort (@monfortcarlos) May 16, 2023

“He is charismatic. At a meal he is not a minor character. He has presence. He is not as expansive or as folkloric as Laporta, but he fills a meeting around a table ”, explains someone who has shared a tablecloth with him.

At this more personal level, adjectives such as affable, ironic or discreet are repeated. “Of those who go out of their way for their friends,” say several. In this there is a coincidence both on the part of those who have esteem for him and of those who see a dark side to him. “He is very close to his friends. He is capable of everything for them. Of course, he expects absolute loyalty, ”says one of those consulted. All have spoken to this newspaper on the condition of anonymity to express themselves freely. “If he knew I’ve talked to you he’d kill me. It is better to be a friend than an enemy”, admits another.

Member of the Francisco Franco Foundation

The Barcelona biography of Echevarría He was born in the 2003 presidential campaign. He was a key figure in Laporta’s first presidency as he is now in his second. In the first, he remained a director for just over a year before it was discovered that he was member of the Francisco Franco Foundationsomething that Laporta denied in the Assembly, and when the lie was revealed he forced his resignation.

Even so, he continued to be influential behind the scenes. So it was a power by delegation of his father, Juan Echevarria, powerful business personality of the time and endorser of Laporta in that 2003 of transformation. Now, in the second term, the son exercises his own voice.

“When we went to sign the guarantee, of about 35 million if I remember correctly, all of us who were going to be part of the board found ourselves in the room with a person that many of us did not know. He was the father of Echevarría. There we found out that Jan had no assets and that he needed the endorsement of his mother-in-law. She was the first one that Laporta nailed us ”, recalls one of the members of that board at the beginning of the century.

Alejandro could not enter the board of directors because he was not yet a partner and when he was, he lacked seniority. “It is that he has never liked football. He doesn’t understand anything. He has never kicked a ball, ”says another. Today, on the other hand, he speaks at meals before locals and strangers about the quality of footballers with absolute naturalness.

“Members of the Catalan sector looked at him with suspicion from the beginning,” explains another manager at the time. Even so, he remained Laporta’s shadow, the projection of his father at the club. And the many connections he already had were amplified once inside. He created the Player Service office and established a close relationship with many footballers at the time. With Etoo, Deco, Puyol, Xavi, Messi, Cesc, Alba…

man of favors

He was present for everything they needed. Without a partner and without children, he did not lack or lack time to do favors. “He was able to get up at four in the morning if a player called him because a car tire had flattened or because of some mishap in a nightclub,” recalls a former executive.

There his reputation as a great achiever grew in the dressing room. Houses, security for those houses, flights, bureaucratic entanglements, personal or family logistics… His very good connections with the security forces of all corps allowed him to solve uncomfortable situations for the players, day and night. He “fixed many problems and if necessary, he erased traces. What is said to be a true Mr. Lobo ”, underlines a consulted source.

“All the players speak highly of him, I can guarantee that. They owe him many favors”, explains another. With some he became more intimate and established professional relationships, such as Etoo or Deco himself. The merit of expediting the documentation is recognized so that Messi could play in the youth stage as a nationalized foreigner, overcoming the drawbacks that, among others, put Javier Tebasthen at Alavés and now president of LaLiga.

A manager of the time disdains that management. “That has been mythologized. It was just a formality. But he is a specialist in creating a problem in order to fix it. He tells you that something is very difficult, he makes you sweat it and then you have to say thank you very much and feel indebted to him. He wraps you up, he mesmerizes you and in the end he gets away with it. He is a charmer”.

In any case, this is where some place the gestation of their relationship of trust with Leo Messi, a relationship, they say now, cooled for two years, when he flagged the renewal of the Argentine and he ended up in Paris in tears. For this reason, in the current reverie of Messi’s return to Barcelona, ​​if someone acts as a bridge in the still precarious communication between the player and Laporta, it is Xavi and not Echevarría.

In other times the relationship was better. It is said that the ex-brother-in-law, a great lover of dogs (he has or had one as a screensaver on his mobile) searched for and bought the Dogue de Bordeaux that Antonella Rocuzzo she gave it to her husband for his 29th birthday. Images of him playing with Hulkwhich is the name of the beautiful animal.

Links with Gabon

The divorce in 2009 of Laporta with constance, Echevarría’s sister and mother of the president’s three children, opened a crisis in the relationship between the two that was reconstituted over time. Laporta left the presidency in 2010 worn out in the institutional sphere but triumphant in sports. And Echevarría threw himself into his business from his office on Avinguda del Tibidabo.

He established relationships at the highest level in Gabon. nothing less than with Ali So You’re Dead, president since 2009 and persecuted by the noise of corruption. In 2015 Echevarría managed to take Messi to inaugurate a stadium in Port Gentil, the country’s oil capital, and they say that he hosts the president in Barcelona when he appears for medical check-ups or cosmetic surgeries.

In Gabon he placed James FerrerLaporta’s dolphin in the elections he won Sandro Rosell, to structure the professional league of the African state. he got that Jose Antonio Camacho was chosen selector and one of the sons de Laporta became one of his assistants.

Controversial security changes

In this second stage of Laporta, Echevarría was crucial to put together the candidacy that emerged victorious in 2021. Also, thanks to his business and banking connections, to gather the monstrous guarantee of 124.5 million euros that the incoming board needed.

On the sporting level, he was the bridge between Laporta and Xavi at a time when the friendship between the two suffered after the coach was the electoral poster for Victor Font (His strong influence over Xavi has been mentioned by several of the sources contacted). AND Deco He wouldn’t be where he is without his ex-brother’s influence. surely neither Raphinhaof which the next Barça football director is still his agent.

But where his hand has been most noticeable is in the reorganization of the club, particularly in sensitive departments. He is credited with signing Ferran Reverterthe CEO who left under mysterious circumstances, and also the one from Ferran Lopezhigh command of the Mossos, as head of security.

The dismissal of the latter after just six months in office coincided with an incident with the then coach’s car Ronald Koeman at the exit of the Camp Nou, but above all with the change in the tenders for Security contracts in favor of some companies and the signing of important members in the department against the professional criteria of the then maximum person in charge. At the same time there was a change in the protection of the first team, despite the objections of Xavi, the players and López himself.

Changes all of them with the stamp of Alejandro Echevarría, who, ultimately, carried out a ‘de facto’ intervention of the Security Department that served to tender two contracts: cameras and access, of around 200,000 euros per year, and the generic security, of about 5 million.

“Pivotal Person”

Now it is not only the shadow of Laporta, but his projection. He even attends sports meetings as the president’s delegate when he is not there. And he accompanies you in the best restaurants in the city in meetings with agents, technicians or executives.

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But what is his interest in meddling so thoroughly in the affairs of the club? In an environment so prone to suspicion, the answers are charged precisely with suspicion and mistrust. “He is a lobbyist”, synthesizes a personality who knows the pipes of the entity. “It’s not an NGO,” drops another. “There is also a point of vanity, of showing off with inside information,” a third party suspects.

Laporta recently said in the Círculo Ecuestre that “Alejandro is a fundamental person to lead Barça”. No one should have any doubt about it.