FC Barcelona Finances

[JamDav1982]

I see their revenue structured in a similar way to Barca's.

Barca were in a cycle of having spent more with Real on verge of doing it and Ronaldo wages no longer being there compared to Barca handing Messi huge contract. Barca have more 'bad contracts' and had spent more in previous few years.

Dont think there is a club in world that budgeted for this pandemic.

 

[Luftstalag14]

This is an excellent idea. A lot of fans around the world would love to have a club membership without needing to go to Camp Nou every year. I bet most of this forum would join as a member if that requirement was dropped. Give global members like 0.5 of a share and vote and I think it could work. Charge a yearly fee.

Also, I agree with selling the rights to the stadium to some sponsor. We are in desperate need of money. I'm sure many sponsors would pay big bucks for it. Camp Nou is the biggest stadium in Europe and I believe the most visited by tourists

Laporta already promised to make it easier to become a soci, in principle I agree with him however there must be mechanism in place to prevent someone or some entity, both domestic in Catalonia/Spain and foreign from buying up a lot of memberships to gain control of the club. That must never happen. We must remain a club owned by the socis.

 

[serghei]

Barca were in a cycle of having spent more with Real on verge of doing it and Ronaldo wages no longer being there compared to Barca handing Messi huge contract. Barca have more 'bad contracts' and had spent more in previous few years.

Probably here is the difference. Madrid has more money due to fewer bad transfers, and more lucrative sale deals. No Messi humongous wages either.

 

[JamDav1982]

Laporta already promised to make it easier to become a soci, in principle I agree with him however there must be mechanism in place to prevent someone or some entity, both domestic in Catalonia/Spain and foreign from buying up a lot of memberships to gain control of the club. That must never happen. We must remain a club owned by the socis.

No one would gain control of clubs through membership like that.

Plenty ways to protect club even if open it up a bit more.

 

[serghei]

Barca were in a cycle of having spent more with Real on verge of doing it and Ronaldo wages no longer being there compared to Barca handing Messi huge contract. Barca have more 'bad contracts' and had spent more in previous few years.

Dont think there is a club in world that budgeted for this pandemic.

The problem is we operated on debt already even pre-Covid. And had huge expenditure. We ran the budget really tight. Tighter than we should have. It's like in the household, it's dangerous to spend every nickel you make.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Sooo true and during Corona times traveling to Barcelona isn't even option.


I would sign up immediately..

To give them credit, the club has been very accommodating and flexible on that. I was supposed to go to Barcelona last year to renew my last year of commitment card and they told me I didn't have to go and they automatically renewed my card.

This year I was supposed to travel to Barcelona to finally become a soci and get my soci membership, card and all the documents and stuff, they told me last month I didn't have to travel and they will just have my soci card and stuff mailed to my home.

 

[khaled_a_d]

I've read in multiple sources that we have clearly the biggest wage bill in the world and it doesn't sit right with me considering we've not been in the top 3 for 5 years already.

I don't see any reason why Barca should have bigger wage bill than Bayern or Liverpool.

We weren't the top in wage/revenue ratio.
But having biggest wage, made us the ones with biggest crisis during the financial crisis from Covid.

It's tricky though. And you can make a case that Ansu Fati is that star. Doubt the club can afford to spend 100-150m. on a player anytime soon. We're in this mess because the wages haven't been kept in control, because of too many galactico type signings, and not ultimately, because of covid pandemic.

All 3 will need to disappear or be drastically reduced. Wages brought in check, no more galactico signings for a while, and hopefully, the pandemic ends too this year.

Make a case for whom? Fans? sponsers? Fati might turn into that star eventually but he isn't there yet.
Old guard still have that magic (Messi/Griezmann and Coutinho) but last 2 are bad fits football wise, and we all know the debate about renewing Messi or not.
It will be either a big signing, or keeping some of those players just because of their names

 

[Luftstalag14]

The club made its dealings (transfers, wages) on the false idea that the revenue will not decrease, but increase. Then this crisis hit and they've been caught badly. Normally, the club should consider some margins of error. Barca didn't have that. Probably other, better ran clubs had it.

Right, our revenues have been rising steadily in the last several years, more than any other club however our profit margin kept shrinking year by year. Revenue-wise Bartomeu did many things right, expense-wise not so much and debt-wise, very bad. You are right on the money that their margin of error is too little they were basing our budget based on the happy path without no contingency planning at all.

 

[serghei]

We weren't the top in wage/revenue ratio.
But having biggest wage, made us the ones with biggest crisis during the financial crisis from Covid.


Make a case for whom? Fans? sponsers? Fati might turn into that star eventually but he isn't there yet.
Old guard still have that magic (Messi/Griezmann and Coutinho) but last 2 are bad fits football wise, and we all know the debate about renewing Messi or not.
It will be either a big signing, or keeping some of those players just because of their names

Or improve the team, and market on Pedri and Fati, and De Jong. Let's see how they develop first. Haaland only has 1 season of elite football and he's already a superstar.

Players can explode quickly and become stars really really fast these days.

 

[FinBarcelonafan]

To give them credit, the club has been very accommodating and flexible on that. I was supposed to go to Barcelona last year to renew my last year of commitment card and they told me I didn't have to go and they automatically renewed my card.

This year I was supposed to travel to Barcelona to finally become a soci and get my soci membership, card and all the documents and stuff, they told me last month I didn't have to travel and they will just have my soci card and stuff mailed to my home.

That's very nice to hear!

 

[Luftstalag14]

Those sections operate with a tiny fraction. They won't save nearly anything of note. The whole handball section probably operates with Pique's wages for a year.

Yes, they cost nothing compared to how much we spend on football, however the very fact they are still in operation depends on how much profit we are making from football as those sections hardly make ends meet (for example we lost 5m in basketball in the 18/19 season, I believe, holes that had to be filled by money made from football).

Don't get me wrong, I don't want any of those sections axed at all, we are the best in Europe in many of those sections.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Barca were in a cycle of having spent more with Real on verge of doing it and Ronaldo wages no longer being there compared to Barca handing Messi huge contract. Barca have more 'bad contracts' and had spent more in previous few years.

Dont think there is a club in world that budgeted for this pandemic.

I believe even when Ronaldo was there their wage bill was significantly lower than ours.

 

[Luftstalag14]

No one would gain control of clubs through membership like that.

Plenty ways to protect club even if open it up a bit more.

How? Let's say a company buys up 100,000 memberships, one for each of its employee etc. and it will allow the heads of that company to basically run the club, going to the General Assembly and having a say in many club matters.

 

[serghei]

We weren't the top in wage/revenue ratio.
But having biggest wage, made us the ones with biggest crisis during the financial crisis from Covid.

I know, but the lesson to be learned is that just because you make a huge lot of money now doesn't mean you have to spend it all thinking everything will work on full power in the future as well. Especially since it's a lot easier for income to drop than for expenses to drop. The income we make is dependent on many factors (some more or less volatile). While the expenses are rather fixed. You can at most delay them, but not make them disappear. Unless players are willing to give up on their money. Which they won't be.

Having 17m profit in a year where you made 990m revenue is insane. Even more so when you already are in debt. The spending was out of control. And it's set to last years since most of the contracts leading to that level of spending are still running. And can't be dissolved.

No matter what we do, this is becoming like a cycle associated with an economic collapse. We need to take more debt to pay the urgent debt. Sometime in the future, the club either stops operating on massive debt with all the risk of losing popularity and sporting performance for 5-6 years or more, or when the creditors will not invest in the cub we risk insolvency.

At this rate, the debt will get bigger and bigger until we won't be able to pay it.

 

[JamDav1982]

How? Let's say a company buys up 100,000 memberships, one for each of its employee etc. and it will allow the heads of that company to basically run the club, going to the General Assembly and having a say in many club matters.

Would never get to a situation like that and easy to put checks in place and limit what outside voters can have impact on.