Barcelona is in more than £1bn in the red, has let Lionel Messi leave on a free transfer, made a £68m loss on Antoine Griezmann in two years, and has a squad depleted by their mismanagement and financial problems. Will things get worse before they get better at Nou Camp?
Barcelona has offloaded players left, right, and center – including Lionel Messi – and is still shackled by more than £1bn of debt.
Where do they go from here? Some eight senior players have left the Nou Camp amid a fire sale to bring the club’s wage bill towards something vaguely approaching La Liga’s new rules on financial prudence.
None of those departures will be felt anywhere near as much as Messi, who even himself did not expect to move on until the morning it was announced.
In 2018, Barcelona became the first club in professional sport to post annual revenues in excess of $1bn (£723m).
Three years on and forced to sell for what they can get, Barca has made an €80m (£68.6m) loss on Griezmann in just two years. The pandemic has obviously played its part, but if any club were not ready for a rainy day, they were at the top of the list.
Things may still get worse before they get better. Last month Laporta announced Barcelona’s debts amounted to €1.35bn (£1.16bn), partly accrued from years of lavish spending under Bartomeu, partly due to the pandemic, and partly down to the cost of keeping Lionel Messi at the Nou Camp throughout most of his career.
