The Football Club Barcelona (FCB) is negotiating with two finalists with the intention of agreeing before the end of the year the name that the future Camp Nou and Palau Blaugrana will bear, an agreement with which it envisages raise up to 500 million euros, as explained yesterday to the Economist the general director of the sports club, Ferran Reverter.
Negotiations should not take much longer, as the agreement to naming is a key point in the additional 200 million euros per year that Barça expects to attract with the remodeling of its facilities, and which it intends to be sufficient guarantee to convince investors to finance the 1,500 million euros It calculates what the Espai Barça works will cost, between the new stadium, the Palau, the Petit Palau and the Campus.
Barça works with a calendar that places in February a road show by the United States to attract financing, and in the third quarter of 2022 the start of the Camp Nou works. The club’s board works to arrive at the American appointment with the last name of the stadium and its associated income under the arm, either through a 30-year contract or through a 10-year contract, in order to then be able to renegotiate the annual fee.
These revenues will not come until the field is finished, what is forecast by the end of 2025But the negotiations also contemplate an initial payment at the time of the announcement of the agreement, according to Reverter.
The FCB already captured in the United States the financing of 595 million euros required at the corporate level, and those investors have also shown interest in participating in the loan for Espai Barça.
These are firms such as NY Life, MetLife, Allianz, Apollo, Prudential and Cigna. With everything, the club gives itself of margin until the start of the works to specify the financial conditions of the operation, such as interest rates.
One year closed
The project to renovate the Camp Nou will imply the closure of the stadium during the second year of the works, which will mean that the club will stop earning between 200 and 250 million euros, which are part of the package of financing of 1,500 million.
Barça’s assembly of delegates already supported the search for this funding in October, but the club will hold a binding telematic referendum among the members on December 19 to ratify a project that more than duplicates the last budget, and that the Laporta board defends as realistic when compared with the works made by other European clubs of a similar size.
Also, Reverter indicated yesterday that it is an estimate, and that the figure will rise if inflation persists on building materials and other costs. The telematic referendum will have Minsait (Indra) as a technological provider with half the cost of a face-to-face one, according to the club.
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