FC Barcelona, ​​PSG – Mercato: after the Messi fiasco, Laporta balances cataclysmic files! – Goal! Football club

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FC Barcelona socios want to understand: how Joan Laporta was able to let Lionel Messi escape? While the new president of the Catalan club had focused his campaign around the extension of the Argentine striker (34), he failed to retain him and saw him slip away to PSG this summer.

Today, Laporta wanted to clarify the reasons why he could not succeed in his mission, in particular evoking the calamitous finances of Barça. The reason ? The cataclysmic handling of the previous leadership. “As soon as we arrived at the club, we asked Goldman Sachs for a bridging loan of € 80 million because otherwise we would not have been able to pay the salaries of our employees, he revealed during a lively press conference. We had to do urgent work to repair Camp Nou, because according to a 2019 report, if we didn’t do it, we were endangering the supporters. We spent 1.8 M € and as it was quickly achieved, we were able to reopen the stadium on Sunday, without risk. Barca have a negative net worth of 451 million euros. “

After having put his finger on the abysmal numbers of FC Barcelona, ​​Laporta pointed the finger at Josep Maria Bartomeu and his sports policy. “We have an inverted pyramid: the former (players) have long contracts and the young ones have short ones. The salary reductions obtained (€ 68 million) were converted into end-of-contract bonuses, he revealed. Last season, Barça lost € 481m (€ 655m – € 1,136m). The impact of the Covid is € 91 million. Our payroll is € 617 million, or 25/30% more than our competitors. But we managed to get a loan of € 550 million at a very good interest rate of 1.1%. The previous management split the bills, as we have seen with I3 Ventures (Barçagate). Ditto with Espai Barça, the debt … The IT and marketing sections had more than 200 small suppliers. All this in order to avoid the control of the assembly. Bartomeu lies by saying that we have “forgiven” 16.5M € to Neymar (amicable agreement signed on 07/26). Because of him, the club was convicted for the first time in its history for tax crime. “

Joan Laporta’s press conference begins, to take stock of Barça’s financial situation pic.twitter.com/jn3V3XoAlr

– Florent Torchut (@FlorentTorchut) August 16, 2021