With more than a billion euros in debt, FC Barcelona is causing a stir. Assets worth around 870 million euros have now been sold, and the football club is allowed to invest again. A media entrepreneur who is now talking about the disaster also contributed to this.
The Catalan media entrepreneur Jaume Roures, who is closely associated with FC Barcelona, is very critical of the high transfer fees in professional football. "In my opinion, it is fundamentally immoral to pay 100 or 120 million for a player," Roures said before Barça's Champions League game at FC Bayern (9 p.m. / Amazon Prime Video and in the ntv.de live ticker). "Sueddeutsche Zeitung". "But the ruinous situation was conjured up by exorbitant salary payments and management errors in day-to-day business."
The Corona crisis revealed the problems. "Covid affected all clubs: Barça, Madrid, Bayern. But the naked king was Barça," said 72-year-old Roures, whose company Orpheus Media had made a significant contribution to the partial renovation of FC Barcelona in recent weeks. In mid-August, the club announced that Orpheus had acquired a 24.5 percent stake in "Barça Studios" for 100 million euros. In total, assets are said to have been sold for a total of around 870 million euros.
"If you run the club sensibly, the problems will not be solved by tomorrow morning. But there will be positive numbers in the medium and long term," Roures said. "'Lead sensibly' implies building a competitive team. Because that's what generates revenue in the end. The club has now been able to build a team. I think that's right. Freely adapted from Johan Cruyff, to whom I have a had a long, close relationship - he said: The money belongs in the square, not in the bank."
Barça had spent around 160 million euros in transfer fees for the transfers of ex-Bayern attacker Robert Lewandowski, winger Raphinha and defender Jules Koundé in the summer. "The stadium is filling up again, the museum, the shirts with the Lewandowski lettering are sold out. And now the club has to play for titles again. If they can do that, the problems will be solved," said Roures.
