Barcelona, like all other professional clubs, ended its fiscal 2022/23 year today. It has been mired in a reorganization plan. The result of this is saving well over $200 million in cost savings. That comes from the sale of assets for an undisclosed, but surely sizeable, sum this year.
The board of directors, led by Joan Laporta, had to give a guarantee of $7.3 million with personal guarantees to La Liga. Therefore, the club can register first-team players like Gavi and Ronald Araujo. El Confidential reports this funding comes courtesy of Banco Sabadell. This is the Spanish bank that quickly became the first choice for the club’s upper management.
In March 2021, the group headed by Josep Oliu rescued Laporta when they negotiated a new line of credit for $135 million. Laporta then became the President of Barcelona. This solution was agreed upon before daybreak when the contract’s term was set to expire.
Barcelona bank loan allows for signings and more Laporta
Without such funding, the club would have had to hold new elections for president in order to comply with the Sports Law. That states the board of directors is responsible for any losses during the season.
Even Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, lately claimed La Liga president Javier Tebas benefited personally from the conditions of the CVC pact. Seventeen of the 42 clubs in the first and second divisions signed the pact. The pandemic caused significant financial hardship for Spanish teams in 2021. In response, Tebas and La Liga offered the proposal to the clubs.
Only Athletic Club, Barcelona, and Real Madrid declined to accept the contract. If they accepted, each club surrendered 10.95% of the teams’ TV rights for the next 50 years for $3 billion. Without those three clubs, the deal drops $1 billion in value.
According to Sport, Laporta recently gave an interview to TV3 in which he not only accused Tebas of attempting to blackmail Barcelona into signing the arrangement but also claimed that the La Liga president had his own financial interests embedded in the agreement.
PHOTO: IMAGO / Revierfoto
