Hours after expressing to Barcelona fans through a letter his concern for the state of health of Barça at an economic, institutional and sporting level, Víctor Font wanted to develop the extensive idea of ??“refounding the club” that he launched in the letter. In an interview in El Món with RAC1, the former candidate for the Blaugrana presidency has insisted that he urges a change in the management and governance model to abandon the current “complex” and “dangerous” situation, aggravated since the arrival of Joan Laporta .
“We have to turn the page on the 2003 regime. The world has changed a lot and what was useful in previous decades is no longer useful. We must stop governing as in the eighties and professionalize the club to protect the ownership model, our differential fact. , unique and unquestionable, which will allow us to compete with Real Madrid and other clubs when it comes to signings that we should be able to make.”
To do this, he considered it essential to “retain the talent that has left in the key decision-making positions” and reproaches the Blaugrana leader for that talent that has been replaced by “friends and family.” “When you have to make projects of a certain complexity come true, you need talent. Since 2021, people like Jaume Giró, Mateu Alemany, Jordi Cruyff or Ferran Reverter have been attracted, but you have to have the capacity to be able to retain them. You cannot prioritize friendships and “personal relationships over capabilities and experience. There is a decapitalization of talent.” He does not doubt that Laporta’s trusted people like Alejandro Etxebarria – his ex-brother-in-law – are valid. However, he believes that “the people who are in the club all day” and participate in sports decisions “have to have some managerial or executive position” so that the member can be accountable for his performance.
Font, “a Barça patient” who has been working for a new club for years and who wanted to take stock of the situation a few days before the third anniversary of the elections that he lost so as not to coincide with the Champions League tie, questions Laporta’s story, according to the Catalan businessman, very far from reality, which he considers a serious mistake. “It’s very good to get excited, but we have to keep our feet on the ground, manage our expectations based on reality. There are many people who have knowledge of this reality and do not explain it as they should. If this official story is not fulfilled there will be a time when we will have no credibility.”
Another mistake of the current board, Font explained, is “going hand in hand with Madrid”, an intimate enemy that would be throwing a cable at Barça, its great ally to create a Super League that “as planned has neither head nor tail.” “. “We have all known about sociological Madridismo since forever. What does not make sense is that when we have to choose between Messi and Florentino, we choose Florentino. Anas Laghrari, Florentino’s trusted man, is advising Barça. In some environments Florentino He said: ‘Who would have thought that I would be the one helping Barça?’ Well, yes, Florentino is helping Barça,” he stated emphatically.
Font regrets that the financial shock plan arrives almost two and a half years late. “The train was going at 200 kilometers per hour straight towards the wall and we have already crashed. The viability plan had to have been immediate. I am angry because either we do not have the capacity to diagnose the reality of the club or we are not told the reality.” , he insisted.
“There have been operational losses of between 200 and 300 million each year,” stressed the visible head of the opposition. “The green light was given to the levers for a partner with experience in the sector to help us, who would bring money and knowledge.” And he gave the example of Barça Studios. “We should have gone looking for industrial partners who know about this, who would make the business grow. And we have neither money nor knowledge. The levers must be done well.” He predicts for this season “an operating hole of 100-150 million” and that the budget will be balanced by selling more assets, “now players.”
Font has criticized the club’s “lack of transparency”, the “disaster” of going to play in Montjuïc due to the way it was done and thinks that Espai Barça is “a lost opportunity to generate more income, as yes Madrid will do, because the business model will not generate surpluses to cover all the debt. He believes that with these “100 million per year” that the white club will earn more with the new Bernabeu, they will be able to carry out signings of the magnitude of Kylian Mbappé. “Madrid is a perfect example that, if managed well, an ownership structure like ours can be competitive.”
He will not lead any motion of censure because the club “needs institutional stability.” “I would only do it if red lines are crossed, like with Bartogate.” He believes that the “transversal alternative” for the future Barça will need the most qualified culés to make the change. “We must create conditions so that the talent of Barcelona fans can come to work. Having Guardiola at City is a spectacular institutional failure. We must have people like Guardiola, Piqué, Puyol or Messi at the club.” Regarding the latter, he considers that it is “one of the great mistakes in the club’s contemporary history” to have let him go because of what the team has lost in sports and the club economically and institutionally.
He also spoke about Xavi, his bet in the previous elections. He reproaches him for having bought the same speech as Laporta. She does not exonerate him from the bad game, but considers it unfair to point the finger solely at him. “I’m not saying that he doesn’t have any responsibility, but if we only change Xavi for Flick and nothing else, the chances that it won’t work are very high. The coach is only a cog in the machine.”
