Joan Laporta

[serghei]

Not only that. Less interested fans means a smaller turnover from tickets and merchandise. Means lower sponsorship deals going forward.

Cleaning the club financially is achievable, but what players/managers you get defines your success. No trophies, no star players and you get an Arsenal. Not a bad club, stable financially, can splash 60-70M on a player, but in the end nothing interesting about them anymore.

Barca have context on their side. Aside from Real, there is no club with a bigger brand in Spain. So probably we won't be Arsenal 2.0. But 2-3 seasons of fucking around winning nothing will get Laporta sacked, and rightly so.

Not at all. What you do is affected by the board that preceded you. Laporta should be fine. Will take 2-3 years to fix most of Bartomeu's shit. Contracts don't magically stop when Bartomeu leaves. What he signed and what he did has repercussions 2-3 years after he goes.

Fans should man up and realize that some bad years are normal when a board screws up to the level of what happened during Bartomeu. They can cry all they want, nothing will change that for fan-owned clubs, if a board fucks up royally and leaves the club in a financial ruin, that will cause years of problems. And this is what is happening. You don't have sugar daddy owners to invest 400-500m to get us back fast.

Laporta will be judged on his investments, sure. But so far, there's only Ferran Torres. Compare that to the huge sums Bartomeu invested for Messi's ridiculous and absurd contract (not even oil teams pay that ffs), for flops like Coutinho, and so on.

Bartomeu made sure the 2020s will be a bad decade for Barcelona. He was diabolical. Most of Laporta's term will be about trying to rescue the club and clean it financially. Whoever doesn't get that is living in Wonderland. I can see us dominating again in the 2nd part of the decade, if we play our cards right and our youngsters deliver (even there it's questionable they will not chase money as well, see Gavi's case). Not sooner, barring some miracle of some sort.

 

[Porque]

Not at all. What you do is affected by the board that preceded you. Laporta should be fine. Will take 2-3 years to fix most of Bartomeu's shit. Contracts don't magically stop when Bartomeu leaves. What he signed and what he did has repercussions 2-3 years after he goes.

Fans should man up and realize that some bad years are normal when a board screws up to the level of what happened during Bartomeu. They can cry all they want, nothing will change that for fan-owned clubs, if a board fucks up royally and leaves the club in a financial ruin, that will cause years of problems. And this is what is happening. You don't have sugar daddy owners to invest 400-500m to get us back fast.

Laporta will be judged on his investments, sure. But so far, there's only Ferran Torres. Compare that to the huge sums Bartomeu invested for Messi's ridiculous and absurd contract (not even oil teams pay that ffs), for flops like Coutinho, and so on.

Bartomeu made sure the 2020s will be a bad decade for Barcelona. He was diabolical. Most of Laporta's term will be about trying to rescue the club and clean it financially. Whoever doesn't get that is living in Wonderland. I can see us dominating again in the 2nd part of the decade. Not sooner, barring some miracle of some sort.

The key is both Laporta and Tebas have to reach a common ground and Tebas has to be a bit less... Spanish (if you know, you know).

Obviously the financial situation of Barcelona is very bad, but at the same time the best way out of it is to increase revenues asap and improve the sporting project to be a companion to this. I said it before but Barcelona can not secure the best sponsorships and partnerships if everyone and their dog knows that Barcelona are in desperate need of income and can not even register a free signing. It is only natural that they will be financially squeezed either by offer, by time to complete or worse- both.

The knock on of this is that it strengthens the LaLiga brand by having a Barcelona which can incorporate talented players- not for the huge bucks of yesteryear but to make necessary signings.

If one or both are stubborn, then both die- or rather both add years to the process to the detriment of eachother.

 

[serghei]

The key is both Laporta and Tebas have to reach a common ground and Tebas has to be a bit less... Spanish (if you know, you know).

Obviously the financial situation of Barcelona is very bad, but at the same time the best way out of it is to increase revenues asap and improve the sporting project to be a companion to this. I said it before but Barcelona can not secure the best sponsorships and partnerships if everyone and their dog knows that Barcelona are in desperate need of income and can not even register a free signing. It is only natural that they will be financially squeezed either by offer, by time to complete or worse- both.

The knock on of this is that it strengthens the LaLiga brand by having a Barcelona which can incorporate talented players- not for the huge bucks of yesteryear but to make necessary signings.

If one or both are stubborn, then both die- or rather both add years to the process to the detriment of eachother.

You can't really increase revenue overnight for a club in our position except by selling assets and obtaining loans, which is a very slippery slope, because you may tie the club to a bad contract for many many years. It's quite admirable to not think about your term and your perceives success by the average Joe fan, but about the club's stability outside of that. Something that fucking rat Bartomeu never showed.

I don't think we're that desperate personally. There is pressure to compete, but I have no problem with a slower rebuild, having the benefit of a cleaner, better-run club that is not caught in terrible contracts for a long time.

There is no disaster sporting-wise. We finished 2nd not 10th or something. The disaster is made up by spoiled fans that can't cope with the fact that the once brilliant club of Pep, Ronaldinho, Messi, Iniesta is not one of the best anymore.

A bad thing would be to be in this place in 2030 or something. Not now, after our first season during a difficult rebuild.

 

[malvolio]

Not at all. What you do is affected by the board that preceded you. Laporta should be fine. Will take 2-3 years to fix most of Bartomeu's shit. Contracts don't magically stop when Bartomeu leaves. What he signed and what he did has repercussions 2-3 years after he goes.

Fans should man up and realize that some bad years are normal when a board screws up to the level of what happened during Bartomeu. They can cry all they want, nothing will change that for fan-owned clubs, if a board fucks up royally and leaves the club in a financial ruin, that will cause years of problems. And this is what is happening. You don't have sugar daddy owners to invest 400-500m to get us back fast.

Laporta will be judged on his investments, sure. But so far, there's only Ferran Torres. Compare that to the huge sums Bartomeu invested for Messi's ridiculous and absurd contract (not even oil teams pay that ffs), for flops like Coutinho, and so on.

Bartomeu made sure the 2020s will be a bad decade for Barcelona. He was diabolical. Most of Laporta's term will be about trying to rescue the club and clean it financially. Whoever doesn't get that is living in Wonderland. I can see us dominating again in the 2nd part of the decade, if we play our cards right and our youngsters deliver (even there it's questionable they will not chase money as well, see Gavi's case). Not sooner, barring some miracle of some sort.

Laporta lied big time or he's a big mouthed fool.

He came into office swinging his dick and telling us how a new era will start. Then he 'suddenly' finds out after 2-3 months that club is in the gutter financially. He fucks around with Koeman, cleans the finances a bit, gets a massive loan from Goldman Sachs which he extended and increased this season(see links) and finally gets Xavi some toys to play with(one of them costing ~60M).

So he already has a year under his belt but comes out with the same excuses about how Bartomeu fucked the club over. Which I'm not even sure he did all that bad as we don't really know the numbers. Sure, splashing 500M on Cou, Griez and Dembele is clearly a black hole, but other than that we can't really asses how much backward we were taken by Bartomeu. Don't believe for a second banks are giving us 1.5B just because we are nice chaps, so most probably they evaluated the financial situation and deemed us solvable. 2-3 seasons for Laporta to not win anything at a club of Barca's stature, in a 2.5 horse league? I'd say that's sack worthy.

https://www.finance-monthly.com/2022/05/barcelona-fc-extend-and-double-goldman-sachs-loan/

https://frontofficesports.com/barcelona-goldman-sachs-reportedly-negotiating-nearly-1b-deal/

 

[serghei]

Those are not excuses. Those are realities you have to overcome.

 

[Porque]

You can't really increase revenue overnight for a club in our position except by selling assets and obtaining loans, which is a very slippery slope, because you may tie the club to a bad contract for many many years. It's quite admirable to not think about your term and your perceives success by the average Joe fan, but about the club's stability outside of that. Something that fucking rat Bartomeu never showed.

I don't think we're that desperate personally. There is pressure to compete, but I have no problem with a slower rebuild, having the benefit of a cleaner, better-run club that is not caught in terrible contracts for a long time.

That's true. I think that the success since Xavi has come here (and most have forgot how precarious the situation looked last summer) has led many to forget that we are going to struggle even register Kessie and Christensen, or even renew Gavi (salary cap). These issues will affect the business side (who is going to associate and pay top dollar to a brand like this? when you have 20 other clubs), and also the loans and payment terms. Tebas is making a bad horse- worse.

So you are right, and one of the few here looking at the bigger picture and with patience. We need to walk intelligently, but also with flexibility from LaLiga which Laporta mentioned. We have presented and are working a plan which LaLiga should take into account on an individual basis and not collectively with Valencia's and Eibar's. Obviously it is not infallible (another pandemic would destroy everything), but we are certainly moving more sustainably than Bartomeu's disaster.

But you can not expect nor demand the salary cap of a club like Barcelona to retract to the size of a club like Getafe over the space of a few years, and for them to follow this reality despite having players on long term contracts, where even rescinding contracts or not renewing will case the cap to shrink even further.

 

[serghei]

That's true. I think that the success since Xavi has come here (and most have forgot how precarious the situation looked last summer) has led many to forget that we are going to struggle even register Kessie and Christensen, or even renew Gavi (salary cap). These issues will affect the business side (who is going to associate and pay top dollar to a brand like this? when you have 20 other clubs), and also the loans and payment terms. Tebas is making a bad horse- worse.

So you are right, and one of the few here looking at the bigger picture and with patience. We need to walk intelligently, but also with flexibility from LaLiga which Laporta mentioned. We have presented and are working a plan which LaLiga should take into account on an individual basis and not collectively with Valencia's and Eibar's. Obviously it is not infallible (another pandemic would destroy everything), but we are certainly moving more sustainably than Bartomeu's disaster.

But you can not expect nor demand the salary cap of a club like Barcelona to retract to the size of a club like Getafe over the space of a few years, and for them to follow this reality despite having players on long term contracts, where even rescinding contracts or not renewing will case the cap to shrink even further.

Give time to some of the fans. They are still in denial. At some point, most will get tired of whining and moaning and get with the program. If not, they can't do much else other than make this forum unbearable.

At the end of the day, we finished 2nd out of 38 teams, and in front of Spanish Champions from the previous season. And beat every top 8 team we faced this season. Things could be A LOT worse.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Give time to some of the fans. They are still in denial. At some point, most will get tired of whining and moaning and get with the program. If not, they can't do much else other than make this forum unbearable.

At the end of the day, we finished 2nd out of 38 teams, and in front of Spanish Champions from the previous season. And beat every top 8 team we faced this season. Things could be A LOT worse.

I think we should all accept the fact that the club is broke, cant sign the players they want and finishing first or second in the league for next few years will be a good result.

 

[serghei]

I think we should all accept the fact that the club is broke, cant sign the players they want and finishing first or second in the league for next few years will be a good result.

Pretty much. Find interesting, smaller things to focus on, like watching Pedri's improvement arch, maybe see Fati complete a season uninjured etc. A season is long and will give you plenty of things to be happy about without actually competing for the titles until the last round. If something good happen and you do end up fighting for titles, even better.

How do you think those Bundesliga teams rack up full house audiences in every round even though they know Bayern always win the league? Because they actually enjoy seeing their favorite team play and try to perform better.

 

[JamDav1982]

Some folk have gone from the biggest whingers about changes they want to se being made to just saying club can do no more.

Simply because it is Xavi in charge and refuse to 'whinge' about same issues now.

Hypcorictical but usual.

 

[iniestaGOAT]

Pretty much. Find interesting, smaller things to focus on, like watching Pedri's improvement arch, maybe see Fati complete a season uninjured etc. A season is long and will give you plenty of things to be happy about without actually competing for the titles.

How do you think those Bundesliga teams rack up full house audiences in every round even though they know Bayern always win the league. Because they actually enjoy seeing their favorite team play and try perform better.

Its why this one was such a great season to watch knowing the club is in shambles, first year after Messi, watching the young players grow, arrival of xavi club legend legend, fighting to finish top 4 and finally getting it.

Shame we didnt get to watch fati though, perfect season for him to grow.

 

[Porque]

Pretty much. Find interesting, smaller things to focus on, like watching Pedri's improvement arch, maybe see Fati complete a season uninjured etc. A season is long and will give you plenty of things to be happy about without actually competing for the titles until the last round. If something good happen and you do end up fighting for titles, even better.

How do you think those Bundesliga teams rack up full house audiences in every round even though they know Bayern always win the league? Because they actually enjoy seeing their favorite team play and try to perform better.

We have to aspire for more though (domestic honours) and are not far behind Madrid.

There is a balance between signing no one and spending 200m in the market. Tebas has to conceed that balance and relieve the 3:1 and cap, while we also need to show a viable plan to do so.

No CVC yes or no BS. Just a logical compromise that benefits everyone.

If it's another summer of wage dumping, rescinding contracts, accepting less than optimum outgoing transfers, signing business loans that don't count as income all to struggle till deadline day to register free signings though, then CL qualification, a run in the CL itself and Copa Del Rey will obviously be more logical aspirations to look at.

 

[serghei]

Some folk have gone from the biggest whingers about changes they want to se being made to just saying club can do no more.

Simply because it is Xavi in charge and refuse to 'whinge' about same issues now.

Hypcorictical but usual.

We are doing more already. Barca had no business scoring 4 past Madrid and Atletico. That is the club doing more than expected.

 

[malvolio]

I think we should all accept the fact that the club is broke, cant sign the players they want and finishing first or second in the league for next few years will be a good result.

No shit Sherlock. You think finishing first in the league will be a good result?

Finishing first or second is not the same fucking thing, is it?!

 

[serghei]

We have to aspire for more though (domestic honours) and are not far behind Madrid.

There is a balance between signing no one and spending 200m in the market. Tebas has to conceed that balance and relieve the 3:1 and cap, while we also need to show a viable plan to do so.

No CVC yes or no BS. Just a logical compromise that benefits everyone.

If it's another summer of wage dumping, rescinding contracts, accepting less than optimum outgoing transfers, signing business loans that don't count as income all to struggle till deadline day to register free signings though, then CL qualification, a run in the CL itself and Copa Del Rey will obviously be more logical aspirations to look at.

We'll see where we are when the season begins. It's early to make speculations.