Joan Laporta

[serghei]

relax. Barcelona tourism will keep us afloat.

Doubt it. Imagine Barca and Madrid managed by Bartomeu 2.0, and Jose Ramon Calderon 2.0. That Calderon Madrid president in mid 00s was even buffooning around in Romania when Madrid played Steaua in 2006. Absolute joke that guy. Just because Flo is a master president, doesn't mean they are clown free for life.

Florentino and Laporta won't be around for too long. Next imbeciles that get the job as Presidents will finish the job and force these clubs to go private. If this was basseball Barca would be on 2/3 strikes.

 

[serghei]

The only silver lining is... doesn't fucking matter if the club is owned by a billionaire. Just get the best players to deliver showtime on Camp Nou and everyone will cheer and forget about the legal entity of the club and paperworks.

That's what EPL tards don't get. Only pure romantic Catalans will feel a burn in the heart when the club will be privately owned. The global fanbase will forget about it the moment the money will be pouring in.

Barca being on sale is tremendous opportunity for many people who have too much money and are too bored with yachts and owning islands and shit.

 

[Luftstalag14]

In addition, Liga rules count losses for up to 5 years.
That mean the 400M+ losses of 2021 will be there in 2026 summer hunting us, and we were doing losses for 2022 too if no leverage.
That mean "at best" we were going to have a normal mercato in 2028.
And heck, Liga made a role to count B players in salary cap.
We were going to have a salary cap allowance of negative value.
We might have continued to make losses for next few years too with all those awful contracts.

Now, Liga clubs has signed CVC, for far lower value than we got.
French league signed it too, selling 13% of TV deal (forever) for CVC. Bundesliga is now eyeing similar deal. Calcio negotiated one but failed to reach agreement.
Sure, non reached 25% but as a club, we simply needed those deals to "function"
The money we put in this summer signing isn't that much for a club of our revenue

Honestly I think Laporta didn't want to sell anything, but there was no other "out" from it.

In a way, the club will be paying a price for Laporta's decision to fatten the loss of the 20/21 season to 487m (I believe his original intent to do so was to make 21/22 numbers look better, it was done before they modified the statute which held the board responsible for losses of two consecutive years), something I remember reading that Ferran Reverter was against.

I just don't trust Laporta will all the money stuff.

 

[Luftstalag14]

By the way, I read in an article yesterday that barca is working on projects involving tourism. Are we building hotels or what?

Do you remember what it is called? I want to read it...

 

[serghei]

In a way, the club will be paying a price for Laporta's decision to fatten the loss of the 20/21 season to 487m (I believe his original intent to do so was to make 21/22 numbers look better, it was done before they modified the statute which held the board responsible for losses of two consecutive years), something I remember reading that Ferran Reverter was against.

I just don't trust Laporta will all the money stuff.

This has to be a joke.

Laporta is no martyr to fall in the sword perfectly layed down by Bartomeu.

He wants to win. I respect that.

I do not think that the club is a small-scale fan owned club that can take a 10 year hit. You go big and recover, or sell the club. That's where I'm at. Do everything that you can, but you just can't turn Barcelona into some sort of club who has a top 4 finish as an objective for 10 years.

You still doubt Laporta after the shit he took over?

 

[Luftstalag14]

The only silver lining is... doesn't fucking matter if the club is owned by a billionaire. Just get the best players to deliver showtime on Camp Nou and everyone will cheer and forget about the legal entity of the club and paperworks.

That's what EPL tards don't get. Only pure romantic Catalans will feel a burn in the heart when the club will be privately owned. The global fanbase will forget about it the moment the money will be pouring in.

Barca being on sale is tremendous opportunity for many people who have too much money and are too bored with yachts and owning islands and shit.

I don't know about that, a lot of people are drawn by the fact that Barca is a member-owned club, including myself, not just some Catalans. It is a very important part of the club's identity.

I think the day this club is sold to some filthy billionaire is the day I will stop being a Barca fan.

 

[Luftstalag14]

This has to be a joke.

Laporta is no martyr to fall in the sword perfectly layed down by Bartomeu.

He wants to win. I respect that.

What joke? He did balloon the loss to that huge amount, and he did conveniently propose to suspend that part of the statute, it is all facts.

He wants to win, sure. Everybody wants to win. Bartomeu wants to win. But Laporta might just be like Bartomeu, win now and worry later. Without a lot of foresight.

 

[khaled_a_d]

In a way, the club will be paying a price for Laporta's decision to fatten the loss of the 20/21 season to 487m (I believe his original intent to do so was to make 21/22 numbers look better, it was done before they modified the statute which held the board responsible for losses of two consecutive years), something I remember reading that Ferran Reverter was against.

I just don't trust Laporta will all the money stuff.

Laporta has only depreciated 4 contracts, thus inflating the losses.
The issue is, those money was going to be on the books sooner or later. So we could have been generating losses for another 3 years with those contracts.
And what I read was different, Reverter was the one who wanted it.

 

[serghei]

I don't know about that, a lot of people are drawn by the fact that Barca is a member-owned club, including myself, not just some Catalans. It is a very important part of the club's identity.

I think the day this club is sold to some filthy billionaire is the day I will stop being a Barca fan.

You just nailed the whole key topic to be had here.

What type of club is Barcelona? Is it global, where winning is the no1 objective from which all others stem from? Or is it a small-scale fan owned club that will accept to be bullied by the rich clubs who will dominate, make no mistake about that.

UEFA is corrupt. Mega-rich clubs not only purchased a seat at the table, but they occupy the best spots by basically making a mockery out of so called FFP rules .

Football is becoming too big for romantic projects such as Barcelona and Madrid. We have realized this and are trying to turn the tables and attempt to turn the elite competition into some sort of private club with the Superleague stuff.

The Superleague project is born out of legitimate concerns about the Barca and Madrid models being turned into some sort of pipe dream. It's already happening. Madrid already lost their dream boy to basically state of Qatar.

You cannot compete with billionaire-backed clubs. The popularity of the sport has drawn in people and entities for which losing money for the purpose of entertainment and status is not a problem at all.

The main source of fun for the megarich is spending money, because they have so much of it.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Yes [MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION], I still doubt Laporta very much, still. He basically sold a lot of rights and assets to get the current season going and hope for the best. Also to his credit, I think he is working on cutting the wage bill, even though it has increased by 32% compared to the last season already, probably due to the new players we brought on board.

I don't know if he has a plan to balance the books for the next couple of seasons when our revenue will be down (a fact we already know that) and we don't have much else to sell.

 

[Luftstalag14]

Laporta has only depreciated 4 contracts, thus inflating the losses.
The issue is, those money was going to be on the books sooner or later. So we could have been generating losses for another 3 years with those contracts.
And what I read was different, Reverter was the one who wanted it.

So it is still going to hurt us one way or the other, and to your point on that post above, the loss is going to affect us for 5 years, I failed to see what he actually gained by doing so.

I read that both Ferran Reverter and EY were against it, one of the reasons that led to Laporta terminating the contract with EY and hiring Grant Thornton.

 

[Horatio]

Do you remember what it is called? I want to read it...

I am trying to find it but no luck. I was doing some research on barto deals late at night and came across a project and would generate through tourism.
It could have been referring to the espai project as I am reading also entails the urbanization of surrounding area, building of office buildings a hotel.

 

[serghei]

Yes [MENTION=15262]serghei[/MENTION], I still doubt Laporta very much, still. He basically sold a lot of rights and assets to get the current season going and hope for the best. Also to his credit, I think he is working on cutting the wage bill, even though it has increased by 32% compared to the last season already, probably due to the new players we brought on board.

I don't know if he has a plan to balance the books for the next couple of seasons when our revenue will be down (a fact we already know that) and we don't have much else to sell.

What exactly do you want?

Because I am not sure that even if you take 5-10 years of struggling, you will be able to beat the system. There is a system going on that is basically a death sentence for clubs like Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Madrid are temporarily safe, emphasis on temporarily.

If Barcelona and Madrid will manage to leverage their status into fighting off much much richer clubs who basically operate at a loss... it's an incredible achievement. But I find it very unlikely. In the end, money tends to win out.

Ok, Barca and Madrid could be great when run awesomely well. What about when they are run like shit, by rats and incompetent people who somehow find ways to win elections? Pray you survive stuff.

Btw, Chelsea had a 1.6bn pounds debt to Abramovich who has been erased somehow based on what I've read. How is that fair? It's not, we're like a dude trying to buy a Vacheron Constantin or a Patek Phillippe 60k watch with our normal yearly wages, competing with mega-loaded spoiled kids with billionaire parents who basically buy these luxury watches for fun.

That's Barca vs PSG analogy. Some have to raise money to buy things, some have it already and just try to find ways to spend it. It's far far easier to just have the money by default and just focus on spending it.

It is not a sustainable competition.

 

[Luftstalag14]

I am trying to find it but no luck. I was doing some research on barto deals late at night and came across a project and would generate through tourism.
It could have been referring to the espai project as I am reading also entails the urbanization of surrounding area, building of office buildings a hotel.

Thanks. Several years during the heyday of Bartomeu's reign they were floating ideas of creating Barca theme parks and they actually built a small trial one in Haikou, China I think. But the idea was shelved eventually.

The Espai Barca project does propose building a hotel I think, but I'd rather go with the Bernabeu idea of having more retail space and stores and cinema etc. to turn it into a 365-day venue and generate more foot traffic. More foot traffic means more money.

Again Florentino Perez beat us there.

 

[Horatio]

Thanks. Several years during the heyday of Bartomeu's reign they were floating ideas of creating Barca theme parks and they actually built a small trial one in Haikou, China I think. But the idea was shelved eventually.

The Espai Barca project does propose building a hotel I think, but I'd rather go with the Bernabeu idea of having more retail space and stores and cinema etc. to turn it into a 365-day venue and generate more foot traffic. More foot traffic means more money.

Again Florentino Perez beat us there.

How do you foresee barca future in terms of being sold and falling into hands of a billionaire. Inevitable?