Joan Laporta faces this Sunday the second Assembly of delegated members of his second term just four months after the first, in which he asked for the approval of the accounts for the 2019-20 financial year, which belonged to Bartomeu so that, basically, the club could “walk”; and was approved for a € 595 million loan from Goldman Sachs to cover short-term payments.
The Assembly this Sunday, however, is much more important and has two decisive points of interest. Laporta will request the suspension of article 67 of the club’s statutes, which requires the Board to resign if the club’s net worth is negative for two consecutive years. “Let’s not make it more difficult for ourselves than it already is. We all know this article makes no sense if there has been an election and then we have inherited the accounts we have inherited. What we ask is to suspend it,” Laporta pleaded in an interview. awarded yesterday to Sport. Some opinion groups of the Barça consider that suspending the point could have a diabolical effect, since it grants wide sleeve in the economic decision making. The Board of Laporta imputes losses of 481 million euros to that of Bartomeu, in addition to unleashed expenses of 1,136 and a debt of 1,350 million of which 673 is net debt. The previous managers criticize that the debt has been inflated by 250 million: about 160 in depreciation of players and 91 million provisioned for expenses in lawsuits. There are also divergences in the impact of COVID. Bartomeu’s directive takes it to 225 million euros; Laporta, at 91.
The other key point of the Assembly will be the approval of the financing model of Espai Barça, through a credit of up to 1,500 million that will be returned with the income when the work is completed. Laporta has had two of its vice-presidents, Elena Fort (institutional area) and Eduard Romeu (economics), circulating in the media in the last two weeks to make the partner aware of the need to activate a project that was stopped and had a Initial budget of 600 million, it was for 875 and now it will need 1,500 million to activate.