At a glance
- Former FC Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu used an interview with ABC to claim that he didn’t financially ruin the club.
- Post-pandemic, the Catalans were pushed to the brink of economic oblivion.
- In the Autumn of 2020, Bartoemeu resigned while an election saw modern-day leader Joan Laporta elected in 2021.
Former FC Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu has claimed he didn’t financially ruin the club in an interview with ABC.
Camp Nou having to close for matchdays and also its highly popular museum contributed to a post-pandemic economic crisis that put Barca on life support. Yet amid paying inflated wages and overspending on signings such as Antoine Griezmann and Philippe Coutinho which didn’t work out, Bartomeu has faced accusations of mismanagement during his tenure.
He stepped down as 2020 drew to a close. But still, almost six years later, Bartomeu has to bat off suggestions he was the main architect of a financial pickle the Catalans are still yet to fully emerge from.
“I have heard it many times, but it’s not true,” Bartomeu told ABC. “It’s part of a very self-serving account of the current board that I can accept for a year or two. But it’s been more than five and a half years and they’re still doing the same thing. So I say categorically no.”
Bartomeu believes pandemic had biggest impact on pandemic
Bartomeu argued that Barca suffered from the effects of Covid “like most big teams in Europe”. This means that “during those 18 months around €500 million euros weren’t earned”.
“This is a strong blow and I don’t say it, the La Liga reports say it. We as a club depend little on television rights, it’s perhaps 25% of our income. The rest are other activities such as the museum, football schools, shops, ticketing. And this fell resoundingly because of Covid,” Bartomeu added.
Bartomeu explained the increase in the wage bill too. This came after Bartomeu slipped up by only having a €222 million release clause for Neymar that was infamously activated by PSG in 2017.
“We received information that there was another club preparing €400 million to pay [Lionel] Messi’s clause. We sat down with Leo and his father and proposed to them to make a renewal with an increase in the clause to €700 million and that’s what was signed,” Bartomeu said.
“Messi renewed for an amount of wages that seemed very logical to me. Especially because of what he gave, both sportingly and financially. Because if they paid €222 million for Neymar they could pay €400 million for Leo and we didn’t want to lose him in any way.”
Things are looking up for Barcelona
Barca did of course lose Messi in the end but for free. In the recent past, Bartomeu has argued that there was a way to keep the Argentine.
After assuming the reigns in the spring of 2021, though, Laporta didn’t keep an election promise by failing to renew the number 10 and seeing him walk to PSG for nothing.
Laporta recently won a second term at the polls, and it appears as though his camp and Bartomeu will continue to sling mud at one another from a distance.
With Barca now back at the new Camp Nou, though, matchday revenues are increasing as are takings in the club shop.
Once the ground – currently at 62k – has its full 105,000 capacity, expect the Blaugrana to be further financially boosted and perhaps put this episode behind them for once and for all.
