Josep Maria Bartomeu takes his revenge in an open letter addressed to Joan Laporta. The Barcelona president who left in October has long been publicly criticized by his successor Laporta and has had enough. Bartomeu claims to have had enough plans to help Barcelona recover from the corona crisis, but that Laporta simply did not take advantage of them.
Bartomeu argues that Laporta left the club in 2010 after his first term as president of Barcelona. “We started in July 2010 with negative equity of EUR 60 million,” said Bartomeu, who took office at the time as vice president. He succeeded Sandro Rosell as president from 2014, after the latter left over questionable payments in Neymar’s transfer to Barcelona. “Now is a completely different situation than then,” says Bartomeu, pointing to the loss of 80 million euros in the 2009/10 season and an overall loss of 47.6 million euros over the period 2003 to 2010, Laporta’s term. . “These negative results were a disastrous legacy you left us.”
Bartomeu is accused of having left the club behind in a huge financial crisis when he resigned in October last year after a vote of no confidence by his own socios. The resigned president now claims to have acted adequately when the corona crisis finally broke out in March 2020. As a result, Barcelona had to deal with a decrease in turnover of 375 million euros. Bartomeu points out that he has immediately implemented a first cut in salaries of twelve percent. “We then wanted to apply another 20 percent reduction for 90 million euros, but our board was no longer there to complete it. It is a decision that could only be taken by the new board of directors, but there was no action on their part.”
Bartomeu also started the so-called Barça Corporate project from April 2020, with which the club could have realized a capital injection of 220 million euros in collaboration with companies. Laporta pulled the plug on that project after his arrival. “If we added the necessary €90 million salary cut to that €220 million, the club would have complied with all LaLiga rules and could register the new players,” said Bartomeu. Friday night reported Sport incidentally, that Barcelona will probably still manage to register Memphis Depay and Eric García in time for the opening game against Real Sociead on Sunday.
Bartomeu further writes in his letter that the agreement with CVC Capital Partners, which wants to take a ten percent minority stake in LaLiga, could have brought the club 270 million euros. Laporta opposes the deal with CVC on behalf of Barcelona along with Real Madrid. Bartomeu also states that the plan was to bring in 350 million euros with participation in the Super League. The resigned president also accuses his successor of having reached a settlement in the Neymar case. Barcelona paid 16.5 million euros, while the club had favorable prospects in the case, according to Bartomeu. “Why did you take this decision against the interests of the club?” Bartomeu asks Laporta.
In conclusion, Bartomeu states that there were sufficient plans with Barça Corporate, the salary cut, the possible Super League bonus and/or the agreement with CVC to compensate for the decrease in turnover of 375 million euros, but that the Laporta board has not made use of them. . Bartomeu states that his board is not responsible for the 2020/21 financial year, because the previous board resigned on October 27.