FinBarcelonafan
Well-known member
But Bartomeu was the one who gave them well-paid longterm contracts although they were entering their decline already, which makes it even harder to get rid of them. Right now only Alba is worth his money. Never was his biggest fan, but I gotta admit that. Crazy that Sergi Roberto is earning more than him if you think about it.
According to what Bartomeu did last summer: He was up to his neck in it.
Replying to it's easy to talk, tbf, Laporta already did it once in 2003. To go more into detail on this:
Laporta's leadership qualities are undisputed. He does not shy away from (hard) decisions (whether the decisions are right or wrong is on another sheet of paper). He can separate business and private matters very well. In 2008, at Guardiola's request, Laporta "sawed off" Deco, among other things. Nevertheless, Laporta still has a very good relationship with Deco and there is currently talk of a collaboration on the Brazilian market, because Deco is now a player advisor and knows the Brazilian market very well.
The current situation is not new for Laporta. When he became president in 2003, things looked miserable financially, because he had taken over an incomparable heap of broken glass from Gaspart. To put it in numbers: in 2003 we had a revenue of just 123 million euros under Gaspart. The debts were at 170 million euros and we reported a negative equity capital of 76 million euros. To give you a few more insights into how disastrously Gaspart worked the following figures: when president Nunez resigned in 2000 and Gaspart took over, Barca had a turnover of 119 million euros. After 3 years we were at 123 million euros. Stagnation to describe it in one word! On the other hand, Gaspart DOUBLED its spending within 3 years. A doubling of expenditures with constant turnover. No more words needed. And what was the main driver? The salaries. When Gaspart took over, salary costs were 46 million euros. When laporta took over from Gaspart, the salary costs were 102 million euros. This increase (over 120% !!!) took place within 3 years (that is how long Gaspart was in office). And i would like to emphasize again: with literally the same turnover! The top earners were Rivaldo (12 million euros gross) and Kluivert (10.5 million euros). Those were exorbitantly high salaries back then.
In addition, Gaspart was also in the buying frenzy for the 3 years (that was the time of these expensive transfers from Saviola, Rochemback, Geovanni and others), which of course also drove up the amortization costs. Barca paid almost 200 million euros in redemption under Gaspart in 3 years. I don't have to mention that we were at a completely different transfer fee level in Europe than we are today.
The 2002/2003 financial year ended with a loss of 164 million euros (put that in relation to revenue at that time). That was of course also due to the fact that Laporta and co. "pushed" one or the other legacy into the balance sheet of Gaspart when they took office. Among other things, Laporta has sold some players who were still on the balance sheet with high residual book values at a large loss.
Conclusion: the economic situation of the club in 2003 was even worse than it is now, but the problems are more or less the same. Too high wage costs, high amortization costs, large mountain of debt. So the situation is not new for Laporta. At that time he had a top man at his side in economic terms with Soriano, I hope that this is currently also the case with Reverter, Romeo and co. The future will tell.
So what was the priority #1 from Laporta and his team when they took office in 2003? They had to lower the unhealthy wage level. At all costs! Consequence?Riquelme (one of the top earners) was loaned to Villareal, some (superfluous) well-earning players (including Enke, Rochemback, Geovanni, Christanval, de Boer) were partly given away for free (true to the motto: the main thing is that the salary is off the books), top-earners like Kluivert and Cocu have had their salaries reduced.
Laporta only came into office at the end of June 2003, so it was clear that there would be too little time to completely turn the squad inside out. Rijkaard was brought in and Ronaldinho as the king's transfer (high transfer fee despite the disastrous financial situation), otherwise they held back relatively (Marquez and Quaresma still came). That changed of course 1 year later when there was enough time to finally carry out the upheaval at that time (then came Eto'o, Deco and co). No longer used high earners like Cocu, Enke, Kluivert, Reiziger were given up. And Kluivert is a good example. He was given away free of charge due to his salary. A replacement was secondary, because it was more important to bring the salary budget back to a healthy level. Then you just let him go free of charge to get rid of him. Both 2003 and 2004 there were +/- 15 departures!
So the starting point is very similar for Laporta. Clearly 2003 to 2021 is a long period of time and the football business is a different one, but I am sure that Laporta and co. will use the same tactics this time (!) to bring the salary budget to a healthy level. That will have ABSOLUTE priority. The problems are very similar. High amortization costs due to high transfer expenses, unhealthy salary level (massively increased by the pandemic and the loss of over 200 million euros in revenue), high debts.
- Highly endowed contracts with veterans will be renegotiated. Was already done with Kluivert and Cocu in 2003.
- No longer wanted players with high salaries will be given away free of charge if necessary (Umtiti)
- I can imagine that Laporta does not shy away from losses (Pjanic, Coutinho). He already did that in 2003 when he accepted a large write-off at Geovanni, Rochemback and co. It is also justifiable, because you can blame your predecessor for that and go into your first full financial year with less dead wood.
I am 100% sure that we will see a high-intensity summer with numerous squad mutations. I don't think that Laporta, Alemany and co can do everything in one summer (at least he has more time than when he took office in 2003), but you will see his handwriting. The big advantage this time is that we have already had a year of upheaval on the access page (Pedri, Araujo, Mingueza, Dest). He will put together a competitive squad because Laporta knows best that sporting success is the best and fastest way to solve financial problems (attractiveness of sponsors, etc.). hence the costly transfer of Ronaldinho at the time, although actually we had no money at all. You can't save the club to death.
Very good post and a lot of info. Thanks
