Barcelona: Charged with corruption .... again!

Oly Francis said:
It's obviously really hard. On top of that Barcelona is VERY lucky to have a very good young generation because if you take the same team without Pedri, Gavi, Nico or Araujo, that are fairly cheap compared to their performances, you have a total collapse.

The thing is, some Barcelona fans deserve a bit of taunting because they thought Laporta fixed almost everything in one summer, that everything was fine, that Haaland was on the way etc. No, Barcelona is still in a dire condition and Laporta is human and makes mistakes as well (Torres being his biggest in my opinion), it won't be easy to fix the financial mess Bartomeu put them in.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Barca are still living in a bit of a fantasy land as to what they can do in the market. I mean, have they even been able to sign Christensen yet?

For me, Barca are going to have to continue the policy of selling their best players and buying players on frees for a few more years to come.
 
A lot of talk about how much Barca has reduced their wage bill, and they have, but we also have to remember that they have deferred a lot of wages too and that has to be factored in. Yes they’ll be paying them when they are presumably more liquid, but they’ll also be paying wages to players for a while after they have either left or outlived their usefulness.

The economic impact of Bartomeu’s incompetence will be felt for years to come.
 
simonhch said:
A lot of talk about how much Barca has reduced their wage bill, and they have, but we also have to remember that they have deferred a lot of wages too and that has to be factored in. Yes they’ll be paying them when they are presumably more liquid, but they’ll also be paying wages to players for a while after they have either left or outlived their usefulness.
The economic impact of Bartomeu’s incompetence will be felt for years to come.
Click to expand...

Bartomeu makes Woodward's financial spending and football transfer strategy seem almost reasonable in comparison.

What's shocking is the lack of checks & balances within the organisation unless there was something corrupt going on internally which isn't being reported.
 
We can't even have the worst transfer spending of all time trophy, these showy feckers have to come up and upstage us with their disaster class.
Fecks sake.
 
Red the Bear said:
We can't even have the worst transfer spending of all time trophy, these showy feckers have to come up and upstage us with their disaster class.
Fecks sake.
Click to expand...

Well its Més que un club. How do you beat that?! If you are going to feck up, make sure its some serious clusterfeck. Otherwise don't bother.
 
Barcelona will be fine. Its just too fecking easy to finish in the top 4 and get CL. They'll be back in 2 years. The only thing that can go wrong is if they muck it up and dont back the current management because they set their expectations too high ("trophies").

They won't be a good team for the forseeable future.

Left back, centre back, right back, are gaping holes. Arguably RW/CF too (I have no clue where that Torres bloke is supposed to play. Has he scored a goal yet?)
 
sglowrider said:
Well its Més que un club. How do you beat that?! If you are going to feck up, make sure its some serious clusterfeck. Otherwise don't bother.
Click to expand...
Let's just hope this Arnold fella is up to it so we get our rightful place back at the top of the mount doom of feck ups.
 
They are still losing plenty of games, very inconsistent. I‘m not seeing a real improvement under Xavi.

His reliance on older retirement age players is going to cost the club in the long run. Instead, just keep working with young players and work on the balance sheet. That is not happening if you are trying to sign Lewandowsky.
 
Red the Bear said:
Let's just hope this Arnold fella is up to it so we get our rightful place back at the top of the mount doom of feck ups.
Click to expand...

Like any management fixes, it will always be tough to see any real positive changes from the outside for another few years. Change of culture, restructuring the org/chart like players on bloated contract extensions. Not easy to get rid of people and bring in the right folks.

The early signs are good -- Arnold is willing to redistribute the decision-making process, appoint a DOF and allow ETH to have the final say-so in the transfers. Chopping off the deadwood in the admin staff.

Let's see how he executes everything.
 
sglowrider said:
Like any management fixes, it will always be tough to see any real positive changes from the outside for another few years. Change of culture, restructuring the org/chart like players on bloated contract extensions. Not easy to get rid of people and bring in the right folks.

The early signs are good -- Arnold is willing to redistribute the decision-making process, appoint a DOF and allow ETH to have the final say-so in the transfers. Chopping off the deadwood in the admin staff.

Let's see how he executes everything.
Click to expand...
I actually have rather high hopes for him, so far he has been decent I think.
I was just kidding obviously, hopefully he'll get us all fixed up again
 
Red the Bear said:
I actually have rather high hopes for him, so far he has been decent I think.
I was just kidding obviously, hopefully he'll get us all fixed up again
Click to expand...

Cant be worse than Woodward -- great at generating revenues but useless at spending it wisely. Blew 1.25 billion quid and little to show for it.
 
sglowrider said:
Cant be worse than Woodward -- great at generating revenues but useless at spending it wisely. Blew 1.25 billion quid and little to show for it.
Click to expand...
As much damage that prick did were at least not as bad as Barcelona having to beg for money and such, I give him that.
 
sglowrider said:
Bartomeu makes Woodward's financial spending and football transfer strategy seem almost reasonable in comparison.

What's shocking is the lack of checks & balances within the organisation unless there was something corrupt going on internally which isn't being reported.
Click to expand...
It is very suspicious that when the financial disaster was reported and the club's associates/owners were gathering to kick Bartomeu out, La Liga's president Javier Tebas(who is a self-proclaimed madridista) spoke in public to defend Bartomeu and said it was all due to covid. Despite being the only spanish team in such a mess he insisted it was all because of the outbreak. However, now that we have Laporta, every time we set our eyes on a player, like Lewandovsky, Tebas appears in public to say we are broke and can't do it. The president of La Liga constantly trying to sabotage its most popular team. Even Laporta has already spoken out to ask him to shut the feck up.
When our president was a moron he was there defending him. Now that our best president ever is back he is always there, ready to attack.
It is clear to me that they knew very well what was going with Bartomeu but they wanted him to destroy us as much as possible.
 
MexicanCowboy said:
It is very suspicious that when the financial disaster was reported and the club's associates/owners were gathering to kick Bartomeu out, La Liga's president Javier Tebas(who is a self-proclaimed madridista) spoke in public to defend Bartomeu and said it was all due to covid. Despite being the only spanish team in such a mess he insisted it was all because of the outbreak. However, now that we have Laporta, every time we set our eyes on a player, like Lewandovsky, Tebas appears in public to say we are broke and can't do it. The president of La Liga constantly trying to sabotage its most popular team. Even Laporta has already spoken out to ask him to shut the feck up.
When our president was a moron he was there defending him. Now that our best president ever is back he is always there, ready to attack.
It is clear to me that they knew very well what was going with Bartomeu but they wanted him to destroy us as much as possible.
Click to expand...

Very banana republic.
 
Red the Bear said:
As much damage that prick did were at least not as bad as Barcelona having to beg for money and such, I give him that.
Click to expand...

Barcelona's problem is the FFP, not money itself.
With the FFP of Spain United could not sign either last year or this one. As an example, last year to sign Sancho, Ronaldo and Varane, United should sell and lower the wage bill by €400M.
And we see how hard it is to sell.

This year to sign FDJ should lower the wage bill by about €160M.

This is how the FFP works in Spain when you have had a loss in recent years.

Edit: I did not take into account the amortization.

For the first case it would be about 400M and in the second about 160M
 
Last edited:
Niemans said:
Barcelona's problem is the FFP, not money itself.
With the FFP of Spain United could not sign either last year or this one. As an example, last year to sign Sancho, Ronaldo and Varane, United should sell and lower the wage bill by €600M.
And we see how hard it is to sell.

This year to sign FDJ should lower the wage bill by about €400M.

This is how the FFP works in Spain when you have had a loss in recent years.
Click to expand...
I dont think this is true. Our wage bill is at a healthy rate while Barca literally couldn’t afford to pay wages a few times over the last 18 months
 
Niemans said:
Barcelona's problem is the FFP, not money itself.
With the FFP of Spain United could not sign either last year or this one. As an example, last year to sign Sancho, Ronaldo and Varane, United should sell and lower the wage bill by €600M.
And we see how hard it is to sell.

This year to sign FDJ should lower the wage bill by about €400M.

This is how the FFP works in Spain when you have had a loss in recent years.
Click to expand...
Still, the money you lot handed out was insane.
I think you and Madrid had the double of the ne t team's wages but you actually spent big on transfer fees as well compared to Madrid.
Dembele, coutinhio and Griezmann all for 120 mill pluss is inane.
 
Last edited:
MexicanCowboy said:
Indeed. La liga is a disgrace. Having a president who clearly supports one team. Imagine having Gerrard as the head of the Premier League...
Click to expand...

:nervous: :nervous: :nervous: I would start watching the Slovakian League. Gerrard is just too painful to listen to -- so nasal and ok, he has toned down his scouse accent but it's still tough to listen to.

Scouse and brummie. Tough.
 
cyberman said:
I dont think this is true. Our wage bill is at a healthy rate while Barca literally couldn’t afford to pay wages a few times over the last 18 months
Click to expand...

The FFP of the Spanish league says that if the last few years you have had losses you must recover them and with the pandemic almost all the clubs have had.
And until you recover them you can't register players.

Barcelona could not pay salaries because they were without a president for about 5 months for the elections.
And for that reason Barcelona could not restructure the debt from short to long term.

United I think presented the economic accounts a few days ago and had large losses and a net debt of €600M and this year without champions league.
With the FFP of Spain could not register new players, only with the rule 1/4.

Red the Bear said:
Still, the money you lot handed out was insane.
I think you and Madrid had the double of the ne t team's wages but you actually spent big on transfer fees as well compared to Madrid.
Dembele, coutinhio and Griezmann all for 120 mill pluss is inane.
Click to expand...

We all know where Barcelona's problem came from, now the debate is the current state and how Barcelona can solve it.
 
MexicanCowboy said:
It is very suspicious that when the financial disaster was reported and the club's associates/owners were gathering to kick Bartomeu out, La Liga's president Javier Tebas(who is a self-proclaimed madridista) spoke in public to defend Bartomeu and said it was all due to covid. Despite being the only spanish team in such a mess he insisted it was all because of the outbreak. However, now that we have Laporta, every time we set our eyes on a player, like Lewandovsky, Tebas appears in public to say we are broke and can't do it. The president of La Liga constantly trying to sabotage its most popular team. Even Laporta has already spoken out to ask him to shut the feck up.
When our president was a moron he was there defending him. Now that our best president ever is back he is always there, ready to attack.
It is clear to me that they knew very well what was going with Bartomeu but they wanted him to destroy us as much as possible.
Click to expand...

You are right but in one thing. Tebas doesn't do that because he is a madrid fan, or because he wants to destroy barca. Even he in his narrow mindset knows how important a rival is or else LaLiga becomes a 2nd bundesliga and then its good game for good. He does it because he wants barca to sign the cvc deal he proposed. For sure he made a deal with Bartomeu to sign the cvc and saw already his 10 % commission money. I'm guessing +-30m, if barca would have received 300. Now with Laporta in play, no cvc, no 10% commission. So he wants to blackmail and to pressure Laporta and the club with his daily rants about our finance situation. That's also the reason he doesn't accept the cvc deal barca made, which is btw. much better than his, because he wont get a commission on it. I don't understand, why our club doesn't sue him.
 
Last edited:
Niemans said:
The FFP of the Spanish league says that if the last few years you have had losses you must recover them and with the pandemic almost all the clubs have had.
And until you recover them you can't register players.

Barcelona could not pay salaries because they were without a president for about 5 months for the elections.
And for that reason Barcelona could not restructure the debt from short to long term.

United I think presented the economic accounts a few days ago and had large losses and a net debt of €600M and this year without champions league.
With the FFP of Spain could not register new players, only with the rule 1/4.



We all know where Barcelona's problem came from, now the debate is the current state and how Barcelona can solve it.
Click to expand...
This doesn’t make sense. Barcelona aren’t a victim of FFP where they have money but can’t spend it, they literally have none. No liquidity at all. The board and president are saying this. They need 500m to simply survive.
I honestly think this is Barca done as a top club. Selling off future tv and merchandising deals will kill them at the elite level.
 
cyberman said:
This doesn’t make sense. Barcelona aren’t a victim of FFP where they have money but can’t spend it, they literally have none. No liquidity at all. The board and president are saying this. They need 500m to simply survive.
I honestly think this is Barca done as a top club. Selling off future tv and merchandising deals will kill them at the elite level.
Click to expand...

The FFP in Spain is like this. And of course it does not make sense, the league after the pandemic should make a personalized plan to each club, so that it gradually lowers the salary bill and does not have to do it in a year and also recover the losses.

Barcelona needs the 500M to recover the losses and be within the FFP
 
NoLogo said:
Barcas solution to being broke? Keep spending. Genius.
Click to expand...

Where does Barcelona continue to spend? In one year the wage bill was already reduced a lot.
If the club does not sign anything and is out of the Champions League then yes it is a disaster.
 
NoLogo said:
Barcas solution to being broke? Keep spending. Genius.
Click to expand...

It's not so difficult to understand.
With a certain amount of debt, there is only one way and that is forward. You have to generate income in order to pay the debt and you only generate income with a competitive squad to stay in the cl, attract sponsors and fans to sell merchandise/tv rights/whatever. If barca loses its income, than its definetly lights out. So the worst thing you can do is letting your squad drop in competitiveness. We are not talking about a small business here where you just need to stop investments for a period of time to get out of debt. It's the exact opposite.
 
MexicanCowboy said:
Indeed. La liga is a disgrace. Having a president who clearly supports one team. Imagine having Gerrard as the head of the Premier League...
Click to expand...
It'd be good if you could remind Tebas he's supposed to be a madridista then
 
Ragnar123 said:
It's not so difficult to understand.
With a certain amount of debt, there is only one way and that is forward. You have to generate income in order to pay the debt and you only generate income with a competitive squad to stay in the cl, attract sponsors and fans to sell merchandise/tv rights/whatever. If barca loses its income, than its definetly lights out. So the worst thing you can do is letting your squad drop in competitiveness. We are not talking about a small business here where you just need to stop investments for a period of time to get out of debt. It's the exact opposite.
Click to expand...
Barca doesn’t need Lewa etc to get top 4. They already came second with a rag tag squad.
 
cyberman said:
Barca doesn’t need Lewa etc to get top 4. They already came second with a rag tag squad.
Click to expand...

Having a player like Lewandowski, in addition to the sports section, makes the club have more visibility and that other great players want to come.
Lewandowski is a great market opportunity, one of the best players in the world at a good price and who can give 3 years of great performance
 
Niemans said:
Having a player like Lewandowski, in addition to the sports section, makes the club have more visibility and that other great players want to come.
Lewandowski is a great market opportunity, one of the best players in the world at a good price and who can give 3 years of great performance
Click to expand...
Barca doesn’t need Lewa for visibility. They’re a football Institution.
 
I don't think it's a fact that a 34-year-old striker can give 3 years of great performances.
 
Niemans said:
Where does Barcelona continue to spend? In one year the wage bill was already reduced a lot.
If the club does not sign anything and is out of the Champions League then yes it is a disaster.
Click to expand...
MexicanCowboy said:
Not signing anybody and miss CL football not getting all the money that it entails in prizes and sponsonships is a better solution.
Click to expand...
Ragnar123 said:
It's not so difficult to understand.
With a certain amount of debt, there is only one way and that is forward. You have to generate income in order to pay the debt and you only generate income with a competitive squad to stay in the cl, attract sponsors and fans to sell merchandise/tv rights/whatever. If barca loses its income, than its definetly lights out. So the worst thing you can do is letting your squad drop in competitiveness. We are not talking about a small business here where you just need to stop investments for a period of time to get out of debt. It's the exact opposite.
Click to expand...

Guys I get you can't buy anyone but how about not trying to buy players who want 500k+ pw like Lewa or constantly talking about bringing Neymar and or Messi back. It's also not like you can't finish at least in a CL spot in La Liga with the current squad. Freshen up with some talents, don't pay crazy wages for a while, and you'll still be good.
 
MexicanCowboy said:
Indeed. La liga is a disgrace. Having a president who clearly supports one team. Imagine having Gerrard as the head of the Premier League...
Click to expand...

Was it Tebas who spent 600+ million on flop players and handed over insane contracts? It was so insane that it was not sustainable, Barca members said after all the paycuts their wage bill is still double that of Bayern, that's just insane.

Dembele - 140m
Coutinho - 135m
Griezmann - 120m
Pjanic - 60m
Semedo - 35m
Turan - 34m
Gomes - 37m
Malcom - 41m
Lenglet - 35m
 
Ragnar123 said:
You are right but in one thing. Tebas doesn't do that because he is a madrid fan, or because he wants to destroy barca. Even he in his narrow mindset knows how important a rival is or else LaLiga becomes a 2nd bundesliga and then its good game for good. He does it because he wants barca to sign the cvc deal he proposed. For sure he made a deal with Bartomeu to sign the cvc and saw already his 10 % commission money. I'm guessing +-30m, if barca would have received 300. Now with Laporta in play, no cvc, no 10% commission. So he wants to blackmail and to pressure Laporta and the club with his daily rants about our finance situation. That's also the reason he doesn't accept the cvc deal barca made, which is btw. much better than his, because he wont get a commission on it. I don't understand, why our club doesn't sue him.
Click to expand...

Surely there has to be some investigation on Bartomeu & team on their gross mishandling/mismanagement -- and possible corrupt practises during his reign?
The overpaying of players -- and am sure a large chunk when to agents' fees which then can be kicked back to the Barca officials.
 
sglowrider said:
Surely there has to be some investigation on Bartomeu & team on their gross mishandling/mismanagement -- and possible corrupt practises during his reign?
The overpaying of players -- and am sure a large chunk when to agents' fees which then can be kicked back to the Barca officials.
Click to expand...
Isn’t he in jail because of it?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.