BarcelonaBarça TV workers held a new day of strike this Sunday during Barça-Sevilla. It is the ninth since December 31, when, coinciding with the Barcelona derby, they decided to stop working during the matches of Xavi Hernández’s team as a form of protest for working conditions and wages that they consider precarious. Since then, there have been several meetings at the headquarters of the Department of Labor of the Generalitat of Catalonia between the works committee and TBSC Barcelona Producciones, the Telefónica subsidiary to which Barça subcontracts the production of the television channel .
As sources from the works committee explain to the ARA, “in the last mediation there were approaches”. However, there is a red line that the company does not want to deal with. “The proposal they are offering us for 2022 and 2023 is insufficient, but we would appreciate it if a future pact was signed that did not expire this 2023. We cannot remain stagnant and be in conflict again in one or two years. They don’t want to sign anything in the future, when now is, in theory, when they have to negotiate a new contract with the client (the current one with Barça ends this June). It’s now or never”, they say.
To deal with this extreme situation, the committee requested a new meeting with Joan Laporta a few days ago. “In theory, we are waiting to schedule a meeting. We hope that the sooner the better”, they wish. At the moment, however, they do not have a date, despite the fact that they have already sent two emails requesting it. In response to the first, the club denied reports of a possible sale of Barça TV in order to use it as a new lever (sale of assets) for the summer with the aim of fulfilling the fair play finance of the League and be able to deal with signings and renewals. Laporta himself, in an interview at the beginning of January with SER Catalunya, gave the example of the sale of “Barça TV content” as a possible lever.
And the ARA has been able to confirm that this is an option that is on the table. Although she is not the only one. “Nothing has been decided”, club sources explain to this newspaper. There are three options for Barça television workers. “All at Barça Studios, a part at Barça Studios or continue to be subcontracted”, they explain. In the event that Barça Studios absorbs Barça TV, then the club would have the possibility to activate the lever. The reason is that with this maneuver, in principle, the value of Barça Studios would increase and, therefore, the 49% that Orpheus Media, owned by Jaume Roures, and Socios.com now add up would decrease compared to the total. Since Laporta’s board has the permission of the partners to sell up to 49%, Barça TV’s entry into the audiovisual tailor’s drawer would allow the sale of an extra percentage to a third party.
The change in the regulations of the League of Thebes, key
The initial intention of Laporta’s board was to use Barcelona Licensing & Merchandising (BLM), the Blaugrana merchandising, as leverage for this summer. But the change in the League’s regulations has turned the plans upside down. Last summer, the sale of 49% of Barça Studios and 25% of the television rights allowed the club to strengthen the squad with top players such as Lewandowski, Raphinha and Kounde and, in addition, close the 21-22 financial year with profits and predict more income apart from the ordinary ones for the financial year 22-23.
At the time, the regulations allowed all the money entered to be used for whatever the club deemed appropriate. But the new text, approved at the League’s assembly held in Dubai in December, will only allow 5% of the amount of money paid in to be used to sign or renew players. With one exception: when the asset that is intended to be sold is a new line of business that the entity has created, it can make use of the total of the extra income. This requirement is not met by BLM, which is an ordinary income for the club. On the other hand, as Laporta announced in the aforementioned interview, Barça TV would fulfill it, as it is currently making losses. It is still unknown what figure the entity could achieve with this possible sale. But it would be significantly lower than the 100 million euros that Orpheus Media and Socios.com paid to acquire a quarter of Barça Studios.
“The reality is that Barça TV is a liability, a cost of 7.5 million per year with very little ability to monetize the way it has worked for the last decade as a 24/7 domestic channel. Another thing is that they turn it into a fictitious asset for accounting purposes in order to increase the value of Barça Studios in an unrealistic way”, a source who knows first-hand the interior of Barça television explains to ARA. Regarding the possibility that there may be an interested third party, the same person considers: “If a well-done audit is carried out, it is impossible that there will be someone willing to invest in it. However, there are always hidden agendas.” On the other hand, a person close to Laporta assures: “Jan is capable of selling a television to a blind man, as he already did with Barça Studios, full of assets that do not know whether they will end up working or not.”