2023-05-08 09:18:07
BarcelonaThat history is one of the best teachings that there can be, we will not discover in this article. Life progresses in a circular way and invites us to face situations that our ancestors already had to overcome. But, despite having precedents that serve as a warning to avoid the same mistakes, headaches tend to repeat themselves. An example of this is to compare the adventure of the current remodeling of the Camp Nou with that of its construction, completed in 1957.
Then there was also an exorbitant cost overrun; an increase in the price of materials; a delay in the term of the works, controversies with the construction company; the need to make maneuvers with the subscriptions to alleviate the economic hole; the aid of bonds and credits and dangerous indebtedness; the tensions with the Barcelona City Council, and the justification of the best stadium that Real Madrid had to take the project forward.
Real Madrid made progress in the construction of its stadium
“The copious current expenses for the maintenance of a great club that aims to be among the first can only be covered by owning a great stadium, which allows important collections such as those obtained by some privileged Spanish clubs”, explained a brochure that distributed in the assembly of trustees held on November 14, 1950 to decide whether to build a new temple for Barça. Yes won by 7,835 votes in favor and 1,132 against. This is how he explains it Les Corts and Barça: eighty-five years of shared history, a book by Manuel Tomàs, the director of the Barcelona club’s Center for Documentation and Studies. In 1947, the Whites had inaugurated the Chamartín stadium. The same argument is now being used by Barça’s management team to remodel the Camp Nou when the Santiago Bernabéu has almost finished its modernization works.
Cost overrun of construction and remodeling works
The first forecast of the cost of the works came with the award of the construction of the Camp Nou to the company Ingar, which won the competition with a budget of 66.6 million pesetas and a deadline to carry out the work of 18 months. He did neither. The Camp Nou would be inaugurated eight months later than planned (now the rating agency KBRA is also pessimistic about the fact that the planned deadlines of the Limak construction company will be followed, beyond that the project has a strong delay that comes from previous presidents) and the cost would end up quadrupling to 288 million pesetas. One of the reasons, according to the leaders of the time, was the increase in the price of materials, especially iron.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine is also making materials more expensive today. But this is not, not by a long shot, the main reason why the reform of the Camp Nou has increased from the 250 million euros that in 2007, during Joan Laporta’s first term, it was estimated that the project would cost of Norman Foster up to the 1,450 million expected to bring the current one, adding contingencies and financial interests.
Finally, the financing of the remodeling of the Camp Nou, mediated by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan and which has twenty investors, will be divided into three sections. The first is 500 million bank credit and 100 million from investors. The second is a bond issue of 500 million to investors, and the third, another 400 million to investors. Loan maturities are 5, 7, 9, 20 and 24 years with a flexible structure. These 1,450 million (plus interest that can reach 600 million in an operation that has an average net rate of 5.53%) the club plans to return with the income that the Camp Nou will provide once it is remodeled, which the ‘Legends company figures at 247 million annually.
The board of Miró-Sans also opted for bonds to pay for the works
The formula of the Miró-Sans directive to pay for the construction of the Blaugrana fiefdom was as follows: 100 million from the issue of mortgage bonds, 75.9 million in advances from the partners (in the remodeling of the Camp Nou the partners they have just been informed of the strong increase in season tickets that will take place during the exile in Montjuïc) and 15.2 million in contributions from the club’s treasury. In addition, Banco Santander gave a credit of 40 million and 60,000 cash bonds of 1,000 nominal pesetas each were issued. But all of this was still insufficient to pay for the entirety of a project that led Barça to a serious financial situation that had a strong impact on the sporting performance of the first team.
Boards of directors breach agreements with partners
Thus, 9 years after the inauguration of the Camp Nou, the Catalan entity was forced to sell the land at the Camp de les Corts. Josep Maria Figueras Bassols, of the Hàbitat real estate group, “one of the most important speculative builders of the Franco regime”, as explained in the mentioned book by Manuel Tomàs, offered 226 million pesetas. Enric Llaudet’s management accepted them and on May 18, 1966 at 7 p.m. the sale became official. Despite the fact that the members’ assembly of Barça had approved that this money be paid in cash, the club agreed with Hábitat to do it in convenient monthly terms. Now there are also reasonable doubts about whether the board of Laporta is heeding what was approved by the assembly and the referendum by disappearing from the breakdown of the financing the item intended for the construction of the new Palau Blaugrana.
Difficulties on the part of the City Council
The operation of the sale of the land in the field of Les Corts was a reality despite the obstacles put in place by the Francoist City Council, led at the time by Porcioles. The club had already had problems with the municipal council at the hands of Mayor Simarro during the construction of the Camp Nou. In fact, the stadium was inaugurated without the accesses being built. But the Ada Colau City Council has not put all the facilities in the world into remodeling the stadium either. Managers from the time of Josep Maria Bartomeu explain that when Colau won the elections in 2015, they had to start almost from scratch some procedures of the Espai Barça project that had already been carried out during the presidency of Sandro Rosell and the mayor’s office of Xavier Trias. In addition, there have now been disputes between BSM, the municipal company that owns the Lluís Companys Stadium, and the club over the rental of the venue where Barça will temporarily play from next year.
A group of partners led by the economist Jaume Llopis, former member of the Espai Barça commission, plans to send a letter to the Barça Economic Commission in the coming days in which he will request the feasibility report of the Espai Barça project and explanations about the breakdown of financing, commitments with creditors and how this operation may influence the future balance sheets of the club.
“Some very daring fans during Franco’s regime sent a questionnaire of 100 questions to Miró-Sans asking for transparency in the construction of the Camp Nou and, obviously, at the time they were ignored,” journalist Frederic Porta, a deep expert on the history of Barça and author of books like Forgotten Barça. “Despite the fact that the construction of the Camp Nou was a necessity because the Camp de les Corts could no longer gather all the social mass and had very serious security problems that had caused some misfortune, the way in which it was carried out gave way to the crossing through the desert. Barça went 14 years without winning a League. There was no hard work to sign good players and the club collapsed. Because of this, there were episodes like the sale of Luis Suárez to the “Inter Milan. It was all nonsense,” he adds. Barça is in time to avoid another one.
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