Víctor Font affirms that Laporta’s Barça “is worse” than Bartomeu’s

2023-06-15 12:44:46

Two and a half years after the elections, Barça “is worse off”. This is the opinion of Víctor Font, one of the contenders in the March 2021 elections that Joan Laporta won. The promise of change and regeneration of the current president have not been fulfilled. The Football League has been won, and that is the only factor that generates “satisfaction” in the former candidate, who expressed his “sadness, disappointment and great, great concern” about the real state of the entity.

“The club is worse than two years ago in terms of numbers: we have more expenses, more losses, more debts and less assets, and that is not opinions, but data,” said Font, who made a new comparison, one year after the latter, because his style of opposition does not consist in issuing periodic criticism, but in expressing his point of view at least once a season, and because of the desire to express the voice of the 17,000 people who voted for him (16,679, 29.99%) on March 7, 2021.

Font lamented that Laporta “has been incapable” of “combining talents and will” to rebuild the dilapidated Barça left by Josep Maria Bartomeu, forced to resign after it prospered the motion of censure, promoted, among various groups, by Font. “The inheritance that Laporta would leave now is worse than the one he received,” she assessed.

The biggest mistake: losing Messi

One of the biggest mistakes, if not the biggest, was lose Leo Messi in the summer of 2021. “That Leo left and that he hasn’t come back is a leadership and management problem,” Font scolded Laporta, ironizing that “a barbecue and a hug with a mannequin doesn’t fix things,” alluding to the solutions that the current president thought to use in his day to convince the Argentine star.

Font, on the other hand, insinuated that his formula was similar to the one that has convinced Leo to sign for Inter Miami, linked to other agreements, so that his figure as a myth would last like that of Michael Jordan, “who continues to earn more money than he won as a basketball player. The best footballer in history left Barça, fired from one day to the next. He was about to come back, ending the contract with Paris Saint Germain. Leo was the one who called to return to Barça -Xavi, in particular-, Font corroborated, but Laporta “has not created the conditions” for the 10 to dress again as a Barça player.

The businessman from Granollers sees it as more feasible for another high-profile return to take place, that of Pep Guardiola, “If we are capable of creating the appropriate conditions for this to be possible. “If today can be better than tomorrow,” Font urged, aware that the City coach has two years left on his contract. He spoke in the plural, but he was referring to himself and his group of collaborators, some of them present at the appearance.

Font explained that he was in Istanbul and spoke with Guardiola, Txiki Begiristain and Ferran Soriano. He considered it unusual that “all that talent, who is from Barcelona, ​​is working for the competition; at the Istanbul party there were culés everywhere”. “It cannot be that City is the most valued brand, and not Barça, because it has been done with culé talent”, he summarized.

“It cannot be that City is the most valued brand, and not Barça, because it has been done with culé talent”

Víctor Font / Former presidential candidate

Font continues to advocate for a change in the management model, “without a president who puts on the Superman suit.”

The “three-dimensional” Barça

And Font’s recipe is to think of “a three-dimensional Barça” that flees from “the trenches” and adopts a new management model, “without a president who puts on the Superman suit” believing that he will solve all the problems. That three-dimensional Barça goes through the division of the entity into the economic field, the sports field, which Guardiola would lead, and the institutional one.

Font’s accounts estimate that Barça has lost a billion in the ordinary year with Laporta, among the almost 500 million of the first campaign (20-21), shared with Bartomeu and the management board, the 169 million of the previous one (21 -22) and the nearly 250 million that are expected, of the current one, leaving aside the income of the levers. He also calculates that the salary mass “costs 30 million more than Bartomeu’s with his mismanagement.”

That is one of the reasons why he urged the president to open up to listen to the culés who are helping, as is his case. Font regrets that Laporta has not wanted to sit down with him even once since he became president. There was an appointment and it was canceled five minutes before. He reiterated his offer to “help” and to contribute the “more professionalized and transparent program, with capable people” that it had in the elections. Part of it has been adopted by the current board. At least in the signing of Xavi Hernández. “The best decision, without a doubt, of the mandate.” The worst, said and written, was lose to Messi; aggravated error because Barça has not been able to capitalize, he added, his title of world champion with Argentina.

On the choice of Limak: “I don’t think the most relevant criteria is to choose who makes it faster and cheaper.”

Font also boasted that LaLiga had approved Barça’s feasibility plan, which he equated to the “shock plan” prepared by the candidacy he was leading if he won the elections.

Opacity with Limak

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His plan for the Espai Barça did not include, he recalled, the exile of Montjuïc, but to combine the remodeling works with the football activity in the stadium. He hinted that he would not have bet on an unknown firm like Turkey’s Limak Construction. “I don’t think the most relevant criteria for a decision like this is to choose who makes it faster and cheaper in a project like this in a house that has to last us a hundred years,” he maintained.

Perhaps it will be quick if the prospect of the team reappearing at the Camp Nou in November 2024 comes true; cheap, it is not at all. Although The financing managed is 1,472 million euros, according to what Laporta specified before the Senat del Barça, the financial obligations contracted will delay the obtaining of benefits. “The other part that has not been explained to us is that money lenders will have a lot to say on issues that affect economic activity,” added Font, stressing the opacity in Laporta’s management. She also criticized the transfer of commissions in the signings, alluding to the relationship between Deco and Alejandro Echevarría, the former brother-in-law of the president and whose role in the club is not at all clear despite his presence at some meetings.