The Barça, king of the losses

LaLiga has published its financial report for the 2020-2021 season (last one) and it shows the great impact that COVID has had on club accounts. Revenue fell to 3,818 million euros and the net result between the First and Second clubs is settled with losses of 892 million. The protagonist of this last concept is Barcelona, ​​which reigns in this category, in a negative way, representing almost 60% of them.

Barcelona is once again proclaimed champion of losses in LaLiga. The economic report presented by LaLiga reflects that only a single club in the competition concentrates 58% of the losses at the EBIT level (earnings before taxes). The reason, and for what is known to be Barcelona, ​​said club being public, is in the 250 million euros of provisions that were reflected as losses. And this amount is almost half of the total that it has registered. Since Barcelona finished with losses of 481. Qualifying in the next edition of the Champions League has meant not increasing the problems of the Barça club, whose economic situation is delicate, since they still have to redirect their salary limit (it is negative) and in their budgets they pointed to the sale of Barça Studios and has not yet been carried out. It is the club with the most losses in all of Europe, PSG, with some 250 million euros, is one of those that would be ‘closest’.

The 20-21 season suffered the greatest impact of COVID. The report records that it was severe “on matchday billing (tickets and subscriptions, -53%) and a sharp contraction in player transfer market activity (-52%). De all the negative effect that the pandemic had, between 75% and 90% of the impact was reflected in the accounts of the last campaign. Hence, the numbers presented have been more negative. Total income fell by 24.1%, to 3,818 million euros, when before the illness they stood at 5,000. In LaLiga it was not expected that this level would be recovered until the 23-24 season. In the 22-23 (the next one to be played) the scenario that is handled is that there are no losses in the Spanish competition as a whole.

Despite the worsening in all parameters due to the pandemic, it is highlighted that the “high degree of financial recovery and capitalization of all Spanish clubs has made it possible to absorb the situation without special difficulties in terms of solvency or liquidity tensions”. In this sense, the automatic stabilizing concept of the business has been key. In other words, when Tebas pointed to the clubs that were times of “less portfolio and more quarry”. In other words, it was time to reduce spending on transfers, since the market was going to be stagnant and they were not going to have income from sales. What both concepts had to adapt to go hand in hand. In this sense, the LaLiga clubs that had spent 405 million euros more than what was entered in the market prior to the 19-20 season, was reduced to 5 million more in spending in the 20-21 transfer window. In this aspect, it stands out how the clubs stop investing in players (it goes from 1,533 million to 547), but spending on infrastructure is maintained (from 281 it grows to 296), with the aim of growing in the future.

In LaLiga, he has the prospect for next season of increasing revenues to 4,012 million euros (growth of 5.1%) and reducing losses to €297M, although it is estimated that some €157M would be recoverables to be part of the funding from the Impulse Plan (which will be recovered from the fourth season of its entry into force) and capital contributions from the clubs themselves.