The economic management of Joan Laporta’s FC Barcelona is marked by the liquidity demands derived from the year’s deficit, plus debt maturities in a context of opaque, personalistic and highly improvised management. To cope under conditions and have sufficient liquidity, the club has begun to negotiate a new loan that, depending on the circumstances, could reach 100 million euros.
The final volume will depend above all on the result of the negotiations with Nike, the sports brand that sponsors the equipment, and in which the club aspires to achieve an average income of a minimum of 100 million annually, plus additional amounts depending on the results and progress in major competitions. In exchange, the American multinational wants to extend the duration of the new contract to at least ten years, starting in 2028, when the current one expires.
These conversations include a bonus of up to 100 million for the signing and that the Barça board could apply to the accounts for this year 2024, compensating almost all of the operating deficit, which was already expected in the budgets to be at least less 59 million, but that has expanded throughout the season.
The bonus would largely compensate for the decrease in income from Nike payments, which in this last season have fallen from 65 million to 55.1 million less than those established in the current contract.
This cut is a direct consequence of the poor sporting performance of the first men’s professional soccer team, after several years without reaching the Champions League semifinals. If it had been classified, revenues would have grown accordingly, rather than falling. In any case, the contract improvement will also include clauses linking income to sports results.
If this were the definitive picture, Nike’s special bonus could serve to improve financial fair play, the regulation that the League imposes on clubs in order to match their investments in improving their sports staff to the financial solvency of their accounts. And Laporta’s great dream, having a checkbook to move the market, would be closer.
However, there would still be a big problem to solve. Neither the improvement of the contract with Nike nor the bank credit that is now on the table would compensate for the possible failure of the Barça Studios project, renamed Barça Media to go public. An operation that has been blocked, due to lack of funds, for almost a year and has no known reactivation date.
And that is the big unknown that looms over this year’s accounts: it is the contribution of 100 million euros for the former subsidiary Barça Studios, which was converted into a project to go on the New York Stock Exchange under the name Barça Media.
Next June, the club should receive those 100 million to subscribe 49% of the capital of that subsidiary. An important part, 40 million, should have already been entered at the end of last year. But the investor who was supposed to make the disbursement, the Libero company, has not done so, first postponing it, but in the end making it clear that he will not do it. The club assures that it has already sued Libero in court.
Now the reality is that Laporta and his unorthodox team of collaborators and advisors have been looking for a new partner to take over from that investor for many months. And although sources close to the president have long assured that there are many interested investors, the announcement has not occurred. And it is already in discount time, since the accounts are closed in June.
The great threat for the club lies in the fact that last year Laporta added more than 400 million to Barça’s accounts, half as a valuation of the 51% of Barça Media that was still in his hands and the other 200 as profits from the sale. of the remaining 49%, despite the fact that payments had not yet occurred, except for a small part, 40 million.
If at the end of the current year, on June 30, Libero does not pay or a substitute investor does not appear and neither do the other partners who should make their own contributions, Barça should reconvert – totally or partially – those 400 million registered in last year’s accounts in losses, which would place it in an unaffordable accounting equity situation; in addition to reducing their financial fair play for signings to nothing.
