Next Barca President (2021)

[Birdy]

With the management of the club getting progressively worse the last years, i figured why don't we talk about the future.
Who do you think should become the next president with the elections coming up in a year from now?
I would appreciate it if you state some reasons for your vote

 

[Andresito]

I think it's time for something fresh and new. Victor Font has some sensible ideas and the backing of club legends. As we step into the next era post Messi we need a drastic change.
Bartomeu had the opportunity to ease into this new era but has failed massively with bad planning and miscalculated transfers.

 

[Vilarrubi]

Can definitely see one of Barto’s guys getting it somehow. Voted for Font though.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Would like to see who is their side kicks.
Laporta was smart enough to have a guy like Crujif beside him to help him in football decisions. This helped him a lot. If he can have someone like that with him I would hope for him to win.
Font is basically the new shinny toy that people loves, the "start"fresh which could always be great but would be even worse than current era. He is the high risk high reward candidate.

 

[jamrock]

Anyone can do better than these guys, by just coming in & literally doing nothing.

 

[DonAK]

Would like to see who is their side kicks.
Laporta was smart enough to have a guy like Crujif beside him to help him in football decisions. This helped him a lot. If he can have someone like that with him I would hope for him to win.
Font is basically the new shinny toy that people loves, the "start"fresh which could always be great but would be even worse than current era. He is the high risk high reward candidate.

This is actually the thought process keeping established, corrupt politicians in office.

If he proves to be bad he'll be out very quickly. He's not a man with the political backing of Laporta nor corporate support like with Rosell.

Bad Presidents/Boards or Presidents who overstayed is the #1 reason for Barca always stagnating and busting into a mess throughout the club's history.

 

[khaled_a_d]

This is actually the thought process keeping established, corrupt politicians in office.

If he proves to be bad he'll be out very quickly. He's not a man with the political backing of Laporta nor corporate support like with Rosell.

Bad Presidents/Boards or Presidents who overstayed is the #1 reason for Barca always stagnating and busting into a mess throughout the club's history.

He is a successful businessman, who even if he moves out can make his replacement replace him just like Sandro did.
The current rules are just bad, 6 years are way too long and it is almost impossible for one to be removed.

This seems like more of wishful thinking tbh. He is new, he isn't the guys we don't like that we were exposed too very long, he can be replaced. Non of those are of real substance tbh.

Not saying he is bad, he is just the unknown, for better or worse.

 

[DonAK]

He is a successful businessman, who even if he moves out can make his replacement replace him just like Sandro did.
The current rules are just bad, 6 years are way too long and it is almost impossible for one to be removed.

This seems like more of wishful thinking tbh. He is new, he isn't the guys we don't like that we were exposed too very long, he can be replaced. Non of those are of real substance tbh.

Not saying he is bad, he is just the unknown, for better or worse.

I agree about the 6 year thing. It's stupid. Each term being four years was better.

Victor Font is the only candidate that's been preparing for an election run for years and have been talking to local and international socis. In terms of preparation and having a proper plan for the club he's alone.

Laporta's gonna YOLO it again and come up with BS like "I am gonna bring Pep back" knowing that Pep won't return as 1st team manager.

Jordi Farre's an interesting case, but if it's true that Rosell is behind him then I'll rather pass on that.

 

[jamrock]

Laporte forever, look how Perez went and came back a even better president for Madrid.

 

[khaled_a_d]

Victor Font is the only candidate that's been preparing for an election run for years and have been talking to local and international socis. In terms of preparation and having a proper plan for the club he's alone.

Laporta's gonna YOLO it again and come up with BS like "I am gonna bring Pep back" knowing that Pep won't return as 1st team manager.

Font is running a decent campaign for sure, but that doesn't always mean he will be good leader for the club. Someone like Laporta doesn't need to prepare for his campaign years in advance unlike Font.
Again, I am not saying Font is good or bad, I just think he is unknown, some of his ideas looked good, some bad and some looked generalities. People are romanticising him, like he had Puyol/Xavi attend a conference for him and suddenly people think he has them on his campaign. This shows people are desperate for someone to prove to be great.

For me, I want someone who is good in running business and has a great football mind beside him as a consultant. Someone like Crujif, an ex great coach. Like Rijkaard or LVG. Don't give a shit at all who Xavi/Puyol will support, ex-players have their own agendas and we have seen it with Abidal & Puyol, they will have no problem working with anyone. Candidates just love to use them to boost their chances.

 

[Luftstalag14]

To me one good thing about Font is that he has highlighted the need to find new ways for us to broaden our revenue streams to keep up with those clubs with deep pockets and super rich owners and he understands the challenge the club faces financially in particular. However to me it looks like he has presented very few ideas as to what he would do as the president, instead he has been offering more criticism than solutions (just like the rest of us) so I don't know what kind of vision he really has and what concrete things he would do.

He recently sold his company, Delta Partners to an American consulting firm FTI Consulting (it was a merger), no idea how successful he was managing Delta Partners etc.

 

[BBZ8800]

To me one good thing about Font is that he has highlighted the need to find new ways for us to broaden our revenue streams to keep up with those clubs with deep pockets and super rich owners and he understands the challenge the club faces financially in particular. However to me it looks like he has presented very few ideas as to what he would do as the president, instead he has been offering more criticism than solutions (just like the rest of us) so I don't know what kind of vision he really has and what concrete things he would do.

He recently sold his company, Delta Partners to an American consulting firm FTI Consulting (it was a merger), no idea how successful he was managing Delta Partners etc.

I am not optimistic.
All these candidates are just saying what you guys want to hear.

For example, if I were a candidate, what would I say?
For example:
1. we need to go back to our roots
2. we need to rebuild La Masia and have more faith in our own players
3. we will bring more importance to Barca B and bring better youth coaches
4. we will improve our scouting system to compete with other big clubs
5. we will introduce stats and a scientific approach to trainings and physical preparation.
In general, we will train more than till now because we need to improve in that area.
6. we will add psychologists to prepare our players better.
We will work on mental strength of our players, especially in European away matches.
7. we need to rebuild our 1st team with a new, younger set of players.
Bu we will be smarter with transfers from now on.
8. we will hire a new coach, a guy with vision, experience and who has Barca DNA. Someone who will turn the page, rebuild our club and reconnect with La Masia, our style and our values.
Also, we plan to have 2-3 tactical solutions. A plan A, B and C.
Our goal is to win at least 1-2 CLs in the next 5 years.
9. we will analyze our tactical and sporting mistakes in the last few years and we'll try to not repeat them.
10. we will return some of our former legends into a club and use their knowledge, like Xavi, Iniesta, Pep, Puyol. We need to reconnect with our core and values.
11. we will hire current players right away at La Masia, like Busi (once when he retires)
12. we will find new way to lower our debt, to lower wages and to improve our finances
13. we are working with new sponsors to improve our earnings
14. we are improving our social media and internet activity to make younger, new gen of fans happier
15. we will improve basketball and handball teams also

So, you see, I look amazing.
Don't I?
I mean, Barto sucks, people are tired of him.
And I am a new guy with awesome plans, I will improve every single part of a club.

Yet, none of this has to be true.
Maybe I am just blabbering as all politicians just to earn votes.

So, any half decent candidate, with IQ over 90 and with a decent PR team can sell a nice speech and nice ideas.

I am not saying that Font is good or bad.
But as Khaled said, we don't know nothing about him.
He could be a EV or Setien among presidents.

 

[Messi983]

To me one good thing about Font is that he has highlighted the need to find new ways for us to broaden our revenue streams to keep up with those clubs with deep pockets and super rich owners and he understands the challenge the club faces financially in particular. However to me it looks like he has presented very few ideas as to what he would do as the president, instead he has been offering more criticism than solutions (just like the rest of us) so I don't know what kind of vision he really has and what concrete things he would do.

He recently sold his company, Delta Partners to an American consulting firm FTI Consulting (it was a merger), no idea how successful he was managing Delta Partners etc.

Didn't read anything about this, what has he suggested to broaden our revenue streams?

I'm affraid there aren't exactly many options to greatly improve club's revenues in short and mid-term. Our Nike deal only expires in 2026 so there is not much the new board can do immediately. They probably won't have a chance to renegotiate it before 2023/24 at the earliest and at this point it's very questionable if we'll actually manage to get a lot more money out of Nike or other kit manufacturer but surely a lot can change in 3-4 years. For better or worse.

Rakuten contract is up next year (we have an option to extend it for another year which I think would probably be smart under current circumstances) so negotiating a new sponsorship deal will be one of the first jobs for whoever the next president will be. We're getting 55m/year while RM gets 70m from Emirates and ManU 74m from Chevrolet. So I think we should be targetting 75-80m at least but it will be tough to get that kind of money in the new post-corona market where all big companies are losing a lot of money. Getting other new smaller sponsors will also be hard for the same reason and there were reports when this crisis started we'll surely also lose some of those local sponsors who will need to be replaced.

Selling the naming rights of Camp Nou is another (unpopular) option which will surely happen sooner or later. But whatever money we'll get from that should be invested into renovation of Camp Nou though personally I would delay those plans for a few years to see what financial impact corona will have on the club's finances.

So while trying to find new ways to improve revenues longterm is clearly important I'm more worried about keeping the club's expenses under control and that's where the next board initial focus should be imo, specially lowering wages. Surely, this will sort themselves out a bit naturally once Messi's 70m or whatever he earns will be off the books in a few years and most veterans on big contracts will be gone as well so we should "free up" about 150-200m. This won't help us much though if we'll continue to buy 100m players and give them 20m/year contracts and they won't provide results like Messi&Co. did for the last decade.

So they should set up a new wage scale which should be easier when all current big earners are out. Players shouldn't be coming here just because we pay them the most, we should find other ways to attract them. They should earn their improved contracts by performing great on the pitch for 2-3 years and if they won't deliver we could much easier sell players on lower wages. People are blaming 100m flops which clearly didn't help us but I believe this was our biggest problem for a long time so any candidate who would present a reasonable plan to deal with this issue would seriously get into consideration to get my support and vote (if I could vote).

 

[Luftstalag14]

Didn't read anything about this, what has he suggested to broaden our revenue streams?

I'm affraid there aren't exactly many options to greatly improve club's revenues in short and mid-term. Our Nike deal only expires in 2026 so there is not much the new board can do immediately. They probably won't have a chance to renegotiate it before 2023/24 at the earliest and at this point it's very questionable if we'll actually manage to get a lot more money out of Nike or other kit manufacturer but surely a lot can change in 3-4 years. For better or worse.

Rakuten contract is up next year (we have an option to extend it for another year which I think would probably be smart under current circumstances) so negotiating a new sponsorship deal will be one of the first jobs for whoever the next president will be. We're getting 55m/year while RM gets 70m from Emirates and ManU 74m from Chevrolet. So I think we should be targetting 75-80m at least but it will be tough to get that kind of money in the new post-corona market where all big companies are losing a lot of money. Getting other new smaller sponsors will also be hard for the same reason and there were reports when this crisis started we'll surely also lose some of those local sponsors who will need to be replaced.

Selling the naming rights of Camp Nou is another (unpopular) option which will surely happen sooner or later. But whatever money we'll get from that should be invested into renovation of Camp Nou though personally I would delay those plans for a few years to see what financial impact corona will have on the club's finances.

So while trying to find new ways to improve revenues longterm is clearly important I'm more worried about keeping the club's expenses under control and that's where the next board initial focus should be imo, specially lowering wages. Surely, this will sort themselves out a bit naturally once Messi's 70m or whatever he earns will be off the books in a few years and most veterans on big contracts will be gone as well so we should "free up" about 150-200m. This won't help us much though if we'll continue to buy 100m players and give them 20m/year contracts and they won't provide results like Messi&Co. did for the last decade.

So they should set up a new wage scale which should be easier when all current big earners are out. Players shouldn't be coming here just because we pay them the most, we should find other ways to attract them. They should earn their improved contracts by performing great on the pitch for 2-3 years and if they won't deliver we could much easier sell players on lower wages. People are blaming 100m flops which clearly didn't help us but I believe this was our biggest problem for a long time so any candidate who would present a reasonable plan to deal with this issue would seriously get into consideration to get my support and vote (if I could vote).

I think a few years ago when Font's name first surfaced he said something during an interview with an American newspaper that he would consider charging/selling a flat fee of $10 to all Barca supporters and fans out there etc., which I thought was infeasible at the time (the club had since adopted a similar ideas such as charging a very small subscription fee on Facebook for exclusive contents etc.), also he had some pretty outlandish and revolutionary ideas I remember (but don't recall exactly what right now).

Yeah, I share your concerns about how doable it is to broaden our revenue streams in the short term. On our club's finances thread I expressed my doubt about whether we would be able to sell the Camp Nou naming rights at a decent price and whether we would be able to find a new main sponsor that will give us more than 55m which is what Rakuten gives me every year. Not optimistic either.

I think the club has done two things right in the last 12 months or so which might help us broaden our revenue streams: (1) Getting our merchandising rights back from Nike and creating BLM, a company held by the club to be in charge of merchandising inhouse, as a result we were able to introduce the new online store (for Spain and the rest of Europe so far and will gradually expanding to the rest of the world) which apparently is showing some positive results early on and (2) the new digital strategy the club unveiled which saw Barca Studio taking a center piece of the strategy to offer more OTT content which is where it might generate extra income for us. Lately Barca Studio signed a renowned writer to crate a drama series about La Masia, also they created a cartoon called "Talent Explorers" targeting kids (I watched the intro/preview and thought it was very good, it had very good voice acting and top-notched animation, hopefully the story line won't disappoint). These are things in the right direction I thought, however as to how much more revenue they are going to bring in for us, it remains to be seen.

 

[jamrock]

I don't know how much more he could improve a clubs revenue, that's close to $1b ignoring this boards creative accounting, shave off a 100-150m, probably brings us to our true revenue which is still pretty high.

He could do a few things to bring us to that true billion mark, without creative accounting, but our biggest issues are on the expense side of our books, how do we reduce our debts and salaries while remaining competitive.


We need a new wage structure as messi983 said, because even beside the old guard at our club, we start new young players at way too high a wages, compare to our biggest rival in Madrid for example, dembele's starting wage is what 12m euros? Way too much, I'm pretty sure he wasn't making more than 3 in Germany.

So for be the most pressing issues any new president needs do deal with is,

1) get a hold of our expenses (wages & debt servicing)

2)throw out this boards creative accounting tactics, so we can get a true sense of the health of the club.

3) improve revenues.

All this while putting out a competitive team on the pitch.