The president Joan Laporta and his board of directors face a new ordinary assembly from 10:30 a.m., the third to be held electronically and that seeks the approval of the numbers for the 2021-2022 financial year closed with 98 million profits and the budget for the current course that includes c 1,255 million revenues and profits of 274 million expected for 2022-2023.
Said economic revival is sustained in the activation of the sale of different assets of the club, the so-called levers that the member must ratify. "We could define the levers as operations to optimize our resources and be able to continue to own the entity and have a great sports project. We have a great capacity to attract capital and generate income without losing our governance and ownership model," defended the President Joan Laporta in his initial report.
In two rounds, the entity sold 25% of the television rights of LaLiga to Sixth Street for 607.5 million with a repurchase option in 25 years. "When the 25 years are over, we will get it back. This lever has given us benefits this year and has helped us balance fair play," Laporta stressed. "But the League led us to activate the third lever since it did not consider it sufficient, and we sold 49% of Barça Studios to Socios.Com and Orpheus Media. We are particularly satisfied with this", the president stressed.
In total, the levers have provided 867 million euros of income that allow the club to close the accounts of last year in green and face a budget with benefits this year. "We have recovered the pulse of the entity," Laporta stressed, faithful to the clinical simile that he already exposed a year ago to ask the members for the approval of the levers "to get the club out of the UCI."
This time the president, aware that the club has not been able to redirect its ordinary business and that in order to avoid ending the 2023-2024 academic year in the red, he will have to resort to the sale of a new asset, he also acknowledged that "we cannot function based on We can't always use extraordinary resources. We'll be viable and we'll achieve it with a competitive team and good financial management".
The president, who praised his coach, Xavi Hernández, and who vindicated the management of the football team in the offices to create "a competitive squad that allows us to re-activate this virtuous circle and that Barça recovers its prestige", recalled that Despite the levers activated, "LaLiga said that it was not enough either. Koundé still needed to be registered and the board had to guarantee 10 million euros personally. The board and also Mateu Alemany participated in the operation".
Given this circumstance, in the same vein as President Florentino Pérez spoke at the Real Madrid assembly and Andrea Agnelli, Juventus president a few weeks ago with a letter, Laporta claimed the need to promote the Super League. "European football has a negative dynamic of attendance at stadiums and television monitoring. We must add the distortion of state clubs, with unlimited resources. They clearly destabilize. One of the mistakes of the previous board was precisely to compete against financial level with the pace set by these clubs, which have no supervision and do not follow fair play," he said.
And he added that "this causes not being able to sign stars or compromise the economic future. And nobody puts a stop to it. UEFA, on the contrary, what it does is give them more power. That is why we support the Super League. For a more even competition to compete each club with its resources and without the distortion of the state clubs. The clubs will rule our destiny. It makes me laugh when the state clubs say that the Super League clubs are the rich ones. Have no doubt that it would be an open League, based on meritocracy and respecting the state leagues.
The case went to court. And the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) announced at the hearing that the Advocate General will announce his conclusions on December 15, 2022. "If the resolution of the European Union is favorable, we will be able to work without pressure to propose a competition format that everyone likes", declared Laporta.
