Joan Laporta has taken stock of the half of the season that Barcelona has played. The president has been satisfied with the sporting performance of the entity and the economic improvement experienced. He also answered some questions regarding current market events or close events that have surrounded the club. «We are in the middle of the season and in a few days it will be two years since the partners trusted us to run the entity. We take a risk when deciding to be directors of Barcelona, because it was a moment of maximum difficulty, but we have made some courageous decisions that are leading the club on the right path. On the sporting front, we already have the Super Cup. We won it with a soccer recital. We are competing to win the Cup and the Europa League. Our intention is to win these competitions, but the priority objective is LaLiga. We are first with 53 points, we have a very solid defense with only seven goals conceded. The team is in a growth phase after reinforcing the first team, but it is true that the dynamics are good. We feel like we are candidates to win LaLiga, but we have to keep working. Barcelona fans have recovered their joy, which was one of our electoral commitments. There is a good game, results and a united team that generates a lot of enthusiasm, “he began by explaining.
He focused his praise on the figure of Xavi Hernandez, true architect of the good season that the first team is having, except for the blurring of the Champions League: «I want to thank Xavi for his commitment to this project. He is a club coach and knows the house, our game model, and he has great knowledge. He always looks for solutions. The board is very grateful to him because Xavi has been grateful. Xavi has never asked us to stretch our arm more than our sleeve. We are very satisfied with the work that is being done in the first team and Xavi is one of the architects.
He was optimistic about the future of the club, which he assures that they have saved from ruin: «We can say that we have saved Barça from financial ruin. we have given benefits after four years and we have a BBB rating on the debt. The health of the club is improving. In the Espai Barça they have given us the BBB+, a new sign that we are improving and that it can help us in the search for new investors. We have done very important work in the commercial area and we are getting the sponsorship record. In ticketing we also have a record. There has been an increase in visits to the Museum and in the sale of t-shirts. All of these are indicators that the economy is recovering. In networks we are number one in interactions and followers. You have to find a equity balance and budget. Someone may wonder if we have already achieved the balance why it is so difficult for us to register players ».
He also wanted to explain the problem that Barcelona has with an exceeded wage bill that prevents him from signing: «We all know that LaLiga sets limits based on their accounts. At FC Barcelona we inherited an exceeded salary limit. There was an excess of 300-350 million that made sports management difficult for us. I will never stop praising the work of Mateu Alemany and the football management. we did the levers to have a competitive team. In the summer we will reduce the wage bill by 170 million. Since we entered we have bought for a value of 215 and we have sold for 141. As we continue with the salary limit exceeded, it causes LaLiga to apply some more restrictive rules. We have managed to register players with a titanic effort, but LaLiga has changed the rule for us not to be able to do this type of operation. It is a constant tug of war that complicates sports planning. We will continue working with skill to be able to register and we will try to convince LaLiga to relax the rules, which means that we cannot be competitive with the rivals that we have. In other countries, the ‘fair play’ is more flexible”.
The Espai Barça also had its explanation period and Laporta wanted to deny some information that questions the choice of the company limak to carry out the works: «In recent weeks there have been news that are not true about Limak and the award. We want to deny three pieces of news and we will continue like this if they do not conform to reality. The remodeling of the works on the Espai Barça deserves rigorous reporting. We have established a communication plan to offer the maximum amount of information so that everything is transparent. On the web we will dedicate a space for the Espai Barça so that members can receive alerts with new communications. There will be monographic programs on BarçaTV and a camera to monitor the works. We think this project is important for the city and the country.”
Finishing his speech, Laporta submitted to the questions of the journalists. The words of Matias Messi, brother of the former Barcelona player, criticizing Barça and the Catalans, were minimized by Laporta: «It is obvious that Messi is Barça’s patrimony and we are very proud to have had him. Don’t make me talk about Messi, he belongs to PSG and I don’t want to talk about players who are at another club. As for the brother, I take away importance because has apologized».
Mateu Alemany intervened to rule out the departure of important players but to also make clear the need to lower the wage bill: «We have been improving ourselves and we will continue fighting. There was a unsustainable wage bill because the reality is that we had a salary mass of 655 million. The ‘fair play’ is the representation of a certain situation. We have made departures of players we did not have and we have lowered the salary mass, but Barça needs a competitive team. If we reach the 400-480 million wage bill, it would be 60% of income, which would be reasonable figures. We don’t want to get rid of important players, but we have to lower the dough with less important players. We have to convince LaLiga to lower this limit.” The football director added: “Next year they had a contract Griezmann y Pique which are 90 million cost ».