“Our wage bill is 560 million; Bayern’s is 300 and Madrid’s reaches 400”

Barça is experiencing a limit situation until June 30, when it must solve its financial sudoku in order to face the market with certain guarantees. Eduard Romeu, economic vice president, went through the microphones of Rac-1 to speak for 45 minutes about everything that surrounds a club that right now needs extraordinary income to balance the balance. One of the first measures will be to, once again, ask the captains and the players with a higher salary to lower it or to defer it. Romeu gave illustrative examples.

“The wage bill is 560 million. Bayern’s is 300 million and Madrid’s is around 400 million. Negotiations with the players will be individual and will be based on technical interests”Romeo commented. A photograph inherited from the previous stage of Josep Maria Bartomeu, former president, but with another person directly responsible for Romeu, who was harsh with the president of LaLiga, Javier Tebas: “We have said enough with Tebas. That cannot be. We are Barça. This man is co-responsible for the club’s situation, he allowed this. He said yes to everything against Barça’s interests”valued.

Negotiations with the players, which should be resolved before the end of the month, may cause some of them to leave (“it is the player’s decision. They have agreements that they have signed, we are talking about putting their hand in their pocket. We will negotiate the more intense way”), although the vice president made it clear that sales for economic reasons such as Frankie de Jong are not contemplatedand that any operation will depend exclusively on technical criteria. On this, he denied that there were problems in the renewal of Gavi.

700 million to reach financial equilibrium

Very illustrative at times, Romeu took out the square and the bevel to talk about Barça’s refusal to sign the Liga Impulso de la Liga project with CVC. “From a modest club it’s correct, from our potential it’s not a good operation. It’s a café for everyone”, he confirmed, while declaring that Barça is negotiating with CVC directly without going through LaLiga because it is “more beneficial”. “We will reduce the agreement from 50 years to 25 years for a price of 270 million,” he explained, although all this is one more chance of the many that Barcelona has.

The refusal to sign the Tebas project can bring consequences. Romeu fired again at Thebes. “If you sign you have that and if you don’t sign you don’t have it. You have said the word threaten. The problem is when you are judge and jury. In the winter market we managed to overcome, we can do it”, commented Romeu, who made it clear that supporting the Super League is incompatible (“we are in court and we will win”) with being in this agreement whose objective is for LaLiga to exercise control over all levels of the club. Romeu set at 700 million what Barça would need to recover his health, and considered that in this legislature they can reach that point and catch up with Real Madrid.

He took advantage of the remodeling of the Bernabéu to throw another dart at the previous Barça board of directors: “The value of our assets is just over 100 million. If we had taken advantage of 2019 to start Espai Barça, we wouldn’t have had to waste three years. If you also add the privileges that others have, then even better”.

The assembly of partners and the offers

In the search for more income, apart from the agreement with CVC or other investment funds, the club handles two more negotiations, such as the sale of merchandising and Barça Studios, which generates losses. Regarding the first, that sale of 49% can generate an income for the Barça club of about 275 million, although “this offer does not satisfy us”. Romeu made it clear, regarding the extraordinary assembly of compromising partners on June 15, that “the partners will not know the names, but they will know the conditions. We are competing to choose the best option.”

Finally, and in a very long exposition by the vice president, he gave other details such as the fact that the signing of Lewandowsky cannot be faced today (“It would be by the rule of one to three, you have to take out your token three times and amortization”) and that the salary of the basketball player Mirotic will also be retouched.