First, just some numbers. Very few. The remodeling of the Camp Nou will absorb, in the best of scenarios, 1,150 million euros. In the worst, that is, in the event that the works are complicated, the total of the 1,450 of the new debt that Barça has assumed for the project. For this reason, yesterday those responsible for the club could not explain how they are going to undertake the works on the Palau Blaugrana.
The difference between these two amounts is explained in the budget, which saves up to an additional 240 million (200 depending on the club) for contingencies in construction works. This last game is key to understanding how the Espai Barça project as a whole is doing.
It is a guarantee that investors have introduced into the financial plan, partly due to its complexity, but also due to the fact that the Turkish company Limak, which will be in charge of the macro-project, was not what they expected and its credentials do not seem comparable to those of the other construction companies that lost the bid. With that decision, Joan Laporta limited his room for maneuver in exchange for a theoretically closed cost for the remodeling.
According to the final agreement reached between the investors, led by Goldman Sachs, and Barça, this money will be in Barça’s accounts, but it will only be able to have it in cash or invested in assets easily convertible into liquidity, such as public debt. As a consolation, the club will have some additional income from the interest paid on that investment.
This situation will continue for at least four years, beyond the duration of the works at the Camp Nou. They constitute the guarantee in the event of unforeseen events: delays, technical problems or any construction alteration that puts the work at risk.
It is not so strange, since the new creditors of the club do not have more guarantee for their debt than their right to collect the additional income that the club generates with the renewed Camp Nou. If the works were to go off the rails, last longer than expected, or their cost got out of hand, the financial plan would collapse. Therefore, they ensure that mattress equivalent to more than 25% of the total expected cost of the entire remodeling.
But of course, that means that in the near future, there will be no money from that loan to finance the construction of the Palau Blaugrana, with a cost estimated some time ago of around 420 million euros. The board made a commitment, and delegates and partners ratified it, not to borrow more than 1,500 million for the entire Espai Barça, which included this versatile structure led by basketball.
Now, you must find a way to get it going without crossing that border. Well, it could lead to those same club forums, the assembly of delegates or the vote of all the members, a new proposal exceeding that number. But we must not forget that the Espai Barça began with a projected cost of 600 million, back in 2014. The president was Josep Maria Bartomeu, who replaced the resigned Sandro Rosell. In 2020, the first, repeating in office, but as elected president, raised it to 815 million. That is to say, in a decade it has risen no less than 150%. But it seems that still and so will not be enough. A long calendar dotted with resignations, confrontations, purges, political interference, motions of no confidence, changes of providers and renewals of the project.
The other alternative for the club would be to look for an investor that would assume all or a very relevant part of the works on the new Palau, depending on the balance of the Camp Nou, in exchange for the latter keeping a more or less large part of the future income of the Palau for a certain number of years. Formally, it could be argued that the indebtedness has not increased, although in return income is reduced for a period. The board will have to decide which is its option to undertake this indefinite and substantial part of the Espai Barça.
The club has managed to close the financing agreement keeping the Camp Nou without mortgages and without giving up its current income in the event of complications. Investors have trusted the Barça brand and operate with the conviction that the future will bring more leisure and recreational activities in large arenas with multipurpose possibilities. The Barcelona club offers good prospects in this broad area.
The expansion of the start-up process of the Espai Barça, since the already distant 2014, highlights the management methods of the different boards that have taken place since then. The cost increase is the most visible part. Even in terms of the cost of debt, the interest rates, this hasn’t exactly been the best time to borrow in recent decades.
