Open Camp was presented as the first large theme park dedicated to sport, intended to revitalize the then underutilized Montjuïc Olympic ring. In 2014, the founder of the project, Paco Medina, agreed on the foundations with the municipal company BSM, when Xavier Trias was mayor. However, the scene changed completely after the municipal elections of 2015. The park opened in June 2016 and operated for just over a year, when the company went bankrupt. Medina sued councilors Gerardo Pisarello, Jaume Asens and Eloi Badia for alleged crimes of coercion, extortion, falsehood, fraud, prevarication, bribery and illegal financing of a political party. After the filing of the complaint – to which La Vanguardia has had access – the employer has just presented an appeal.
THE PROJECT
A theme park in the Olympic ring
The project was conceived as the first sports theme park with twenty leisure sports experiences, with simulators of advanced technology and a wide variety of disciplines. The goal was to exceed 1.2 million visitors a year. The park involved an initial investment by Open Camp of 7.1 million, “to improve the positioning, assessment and facilities”.
A BSM BET
The necessary public-private collaboration
Gaudí Innovation, together with small operators and investors, set up the startup Open Camp with the social objective of promoting and developing, nationally and internationally, the repositioning of Montjuïc’s sports facilities. In June 2014, the municipal company BSM arranged the rental contract for the transfer of the use and management of the Olympic Stadium and the esplanade of the Olympic ring for 230 days a year for five years. The aim was to take advantage of the huge influx of tourists who had free access to the Olympic Stadium. BSM and Open Camp pledged to jointly promote a commercial development.
CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT
The conditions change with a year to go before the opening
After the 2015 elections, the new municipal government urged Open Camp to implement “a series of arbitrary functional and commercial requirements and to deny the necessary municipal authorizations and permits,” says the lawsuit. Among which, the commercial unavailability of the main spaces and areas of the Olympic Stadium, the illegal requirement to condition municipal authorizations on the prior employment of certain people and groups or “allowing free entry and free circulation on the main floor of the Olympic Stadium, a circumstance that reduced the revenue forecast.
THE FAILED MUSEUM
Failed installation and failure
One of the initiatives of the Open Camp, the opening of the world’s first Paralympic museum, had to be suspended, “and instead we were required to produce a brazen partisan exhibition of the 1936 Popular Anti-Fascist Front Olympics” , says Medina. An investment of 726,000 euros from a marketing campaign was also thwarted “which we were censured for using the term ‘theme park'”, says the complaint. The development of the project was seriously affected and so was the financing. “The preconceived suspension of Open Camp activity led to the dismissal of 252 workers, the loss of 11.4 million by 68 supplier companies and the 31 million that had been invested by the 24 promoter companies”.
THE APPEAL
The 88 facts argued with 225 documents and 18 citations
In the appeal, Medina cites 88 facts, provides 225 documents (commercial contracts, acts, opinions, communiques, emails…) and cites 18 witnesses. In addition to the four defendants (Pisarello, Badia, Asens and Marta Carranza, ex-municipal sports commissioner), he also cites Open Camp managers and public officials such as Ignasi Armengol, ex-director of BSM; Adelina Escandell, former president of Fundació L’Alternativa, the then councilor Jaume Collboni or the director of BSM, Marta Labata. The letter insists on the bankruptcy qualification report, in which the court recognized that Open Camp “cannot be considered as the cause of the situation, but that several exogenous causes have intervened with different legal and physical persons”.
