The businessman Víctor Font, former candidate for the presidency of FC Barcelona, appeared at a press conference to evaluate the economic closure of the 2022-23 season and the 2023-24 budgets of the Barça entity that the board chaired by Joan Laporta will present on Saturday at the assembly of delegate members. Font defended that "the club is economically worse than two years ago. He is still in the ICU, the tests are worse but they have given him painkillers." He also defended the need to "change the management model if we want to preserve the ownership of the club and if we want to renew Lamine Yamal or sign Håland the day he wants to play in the League."
Font focused on the entity's losses. "We are talking about more than 1,045 million losses in the last three years, from the 2020-21 to 2022-23 season. This has never happened. If we add Bartomeu's last year you reach 1,200 million losses. No You have to hide the numbers," he claimed.
For Font, one of the mistakes of Laporta's management were the accounts for the 2020-2021 academic year. "Player amortizations were advanced and extraordinary expenses were added. Now we see that it was a mistake because we entered into the rule of financial fair play that harmed us. And, despite emptying the backpack, it has not improved. The debt has risen and I am leaving Espai Barça on the sidelines," he added.
The former candidate also insisted on the need to leave the lever model behind and demanded more transparency in the model for selling or transferring assets. "Without the levers there are losses of 1,054 million. And we are getting rid of the television rights (10% 15%), which is a financial operation that does not provide strategic value for the club. And then there is the great operation of Barça Studios ( 49%). Nobody knows who it belongs to or when they will pay," he said, referring to Libero's entry, which must pay 40 million euros.
"The analysis is simple, it is like a family that earns 100, spends 150 and has to use a credit card. In the end they end up selling the car, the house... That is what is happening," Font said.
Finally, the increase in the wage bill stood out. "In the 2018-2019 year, the wage bill increased a lot with 671 million. But it is still out of control. The highest wage bill in the history of the club came without Messi with 676 million euros in the 2022-23 season. It is evident that there are contracts that are inherited but the current board has also made decisions. Contracts have been drawn up that follow the same structure and that are also recent," he noted, referring to links such as those of Lewandowski.
Looking at the budget for the current course, Font is not optimistic that it can be met. "In that budget I would like to see new sources of income generation. I would also have liked if the financing agreement for the stadium had not existed because part of what is earned goes to repay that debt. It will be very difficult to obtain net benefits for the club," he said. And he finished his analysis by emphasizing that he has not spoken to Laporta again but that he is still willing to offer his ideas. "We must not lose the opportunity. We need to change the management model. We are motivated by enthusiasm and we are at the disposal of the club. We are not the enemy," he said.
Another focus of Víctor Font's press conference was the Negreira case. The leader of 'Yes to the Future' demanded unity, stressed that he would not see it wrong if Rosell, Bartomeu and Laporta, accused in the case, the latter for bribery, joined forces to defend themselves and placed the Negreira case "within a smear campaign for the Barça from Madrid, which has always existed. With Cruyff it all started and with Guardiola it continued and we have to look for things that clearly have not happened. There is no doubt that Barça won what they won because they were the best. What has happened "It is the result of the lack of a management model," he indicated about the payments to the vice president of the referees Jose María Enríquez Negreira.
In that sense, Font defended "the presumption of innocence" for the accused and stressed that "justice must have its way." He also referred to the statements of the president of the CSD, Víctor Francos, asking for Laporta's resignation after his indictment. "He says it because he holds a public position. Real Madrid fans do not want Barça to win. This hurts and it is obvious," she said. For her part, she believes that "Laporta should not resign" but she did emphasize that "I ask him to be more generous. They should not despise our interests because what we want is to help," she stated.
