Real Madrid have been the biggest spenders in Europe for a decade which gets them by along with wildcards every year to CL semis and finals with unbelievable draws. They've won 1 La Liga title since Perez came back.
The worry for Barca is they'll struggle like Madrid have but without the budget to spend on top players because Real Madrid and half-a-dozen Premier League clubs will have more spending power the way it's going when we'll need to replace the current team. Real also know how to sell players to generate funds.
It isn't really fair to look at it that way, imo. (a part about Perez)
Perez, well, he isn't a good president, but he had to fight against a club with Messi.
If Messi, the Goat was Madrid's product, imagine how the last 10 years would look like for us (Barca), in terms of La liga and CL trophies.
About this debate in general, whether we could end as Ac Milan, I don't think that something like this is possible.
We are a huge brand, we will always have money.
But...
Again, in the last 10 years, we have built our team and a success on Messi, who was worth 250-300 Millions of Euros.
And we were lucky with our products like Xavi (100 Millions), Iniesta (100 Millions), Busi (75 Millions), Puyol (60+ Millions) if we would transform their worth to the current prices.
Once when Messi will be gone, the same as Busi-Xavi-Iniesta combo, if we assume that we will never "pull" Messi again from La Masia, but also, if La Masia will keep on producing only Rafinhas, Robertos and Munirs in the next 10-20 years, then we will suffer huge problems in 3-4 years and after that.
If we add Espai project into these maths, and a few overpriced transfers like Arda and Vidal lately, then we could experience huge problems in the future, especially if we are expecting to stay on the current level (the best team in Europe, or top 2-3 teams in Europe).
It just seems that Real is earning more than we do, both from sponsors and through some political help from Spain.
Bayern also seems to be earning more than us.
And with filthy rich teams like Psg, City and other English teams (and since we won't have the one and only Messi in the future), I am personally also starting to be concerned about our long term future.
Money is not everything, someone will reply.
But without top transfers like Neymar, Suarez, Ronaldinho, Etoo, we also wouldn't won majority of our titles (especially CL titles).
Barca real Madrid Manchester have zero chance of becoming ac milan - Liverpool .. they are a huge international brand. Real Madrid kept screwing themselves every single year for a decade lmao .. yet as you see they are still huge . dont worry about that.
They earn more from sponsors, plus the government helps them.
Around 2000's when Galacticos bought Zidane, Figo, R9, Beckham, they had around 500 Millions of debts.
Barca also had huge debts.
We had to pay our debts.
But with Real, Spanish government just bought some training ground from Real Madrid, and it's real worth was something like, let's say 50-ish Millions, but the government overpaid it and paid like 200-300 Millions (I don't remember the real numbers). I remember that Van Gaal and our board were commenting on it, how ridiculous it is.
Edit: I have found that story:
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a050801RealSellTraining
"The European Union announces it has begun a preliminary investigation into the sale of Real Madrid’s training ground to the city council in 2001 (see (May 8, 2001)). The sale netted €480m, which wiped out the football club’s €290m debt and enabled it to buy players such as Zinedine Zidane, Ronaldo, Luis Figo, and David Beckham. “We believe Madrid’s regional authorities may have overpaid,” says Tilman Luder, the EU’s competition spokesman. He also warns that the club may have to pay back some money if the price exceeded the market value. “We have sent a questionnaire to the Spanish government: to find out why they bought this land, at what price, and if they can prove it was at the market price. We suspect that the purchase price was influenced by the fact that this property had been reclassified, which increased its value,” says Luder. If Spain’s response to the questionnaire is not satisfactory, the EU may launch a formal investigation. "
So, don't worry about Real.
If they are making mistakes, they have "higher instances" who will help them, plus again, it seems that they are just making more money than us from marketing, since always.
If we will get into financial troubles, we don't have a Spanish government to bail us, we are earning less than them from sponsors.
Plus, we won't have La Masia, Messi, Xavi-Iniesta-Busi anymore.
So, some fears are quite legit about our future in 5-10 years, in financial terms (and that will reflect on our sporting results).
There's not a lot of great options for us long term at center back. Umtiti/Tah/Bailly could all be good but all would be a bit of a shot in the dark. Good thing is Masch still looks in good condition, but I think we've got to be sure of the guy we're getting at CB this summer if that's where we're allocating most of our cash.