Barcelona and Laporta face €20m financial ‘CALAMITY’
Robin Bairner
- 13 Sept 2023 09:20 BST
- 3 min read
Barcelona president Joan Laporta could be made liable for a €20 million guarantee as the club’s financial position became more complicated this week.
According to a report from The Telegraph, the Barca president could be forced to personally stump up funds to La Liga following the failure of one of the club’s investors to provide the money promised from a financial deal.
These funds were said to be “vital” for Barcelona being granted a licence to operate in Spain’s top flight this season.
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Laporta has masterminded a system to keep Barcelona competitive in the short term, despite debts that have soared close to €2 billion. In order to circumvent Financial Fair Play, he has sold off a portion future assets of the club, such as television revenue and merchandising. Popularly, this has become known as pulling financial levers.
However, The Telegraph reports that one of the club’s investors has failed to produced the promised funding in what promises to be the latest “calamity” to strike the Spanish champions.
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Joan Laporta claimed Barcelona could sign Messi earlier this summer.
Meanwhile in the real world... https://t.co/igd2TEbIIE— Robin Bairner (@RBairner) September 8, 2023
Barca rocked by latest financial problems
Libero, a football finance company, has seen its stock crash by 25% on the Frankfurt stock exchange over concerns that it will not be able to fund a 9.8% stake in Barca Vision. This was supposed to bring €40 million into the club and is simply the next chapter in a run of problems to do with the sale.
Part of Barca Vision had been sold to socios.com and Orpheus Media in 2022 but according to the report “Barcelona had not received the full agreed payments from either of those two entities”.
Libero was approached for comment and indicated the deal “has been secured by external strategic European investors”.
If the company is unable to provide Barcelona with the promised money, it will leave Laporta forced to cover the bill personally as this was previously agreed with La Liga.
On top of this, Barcelona face some doubts over the funding over Espai Barca due to concerns US lenders have over the club’s capacity to repay debts as fears build they could be excluded from European competition following the Negreira scandal.
