BARCELONA – Barcelona launched on Monday the closed and audited financial report at the end of the 2019-20 season, which reveals a very delicate financial situation, with a total debt of 1,173 million euros (155 compared to the previous year) and a notification from verifying the club could be in danger. “Future events could be due to the fact that the Group (club) is no longer a company in operation”, warns the audit report, warning of the urgent need to correct this situation.
Carles Tusquets, the chairman of the board, already warned when he took office on October 29, about the “serious economic situation of the club”, without going into some details that he offered last week to the presidential candidates (Joan Laporta, Victor Font and Toni Freixa) before making them public, as established by the Barcelona Statutes, through the annual report.
It reveals worrying details that lead to this total debt of 1,173 million euros, of which 730 are short-term (225 more than a year earlier), with a net debt of 488 million and specifying that at the end of this season, in June In 2021, Barcelona has an obligation to pay 266 million to financial institutions, a figure that threatens its liquidity and has led it to request a delay in payments. Short-term debt of 730 million is divided into 265 million in debt to credit institutions, 2.5 million in bonds and other negotiable securities, 164 million in debt to sports personnel and 298 million in other unspecified items.
Given that the wage bill is raised to 74% of total income (when the maximum ratio could not exceed 60%), he realizes the need to reduce wages by almost 500 million euros, which, according to the agreement with staff, postpone payments, want to continue negotiations in the same direction.
It is also contemplated that Barça has a debt of 196 million euros with other clubs (126 in the short term), highlighting the almost 70 million that are still owed to Liverpool for Coutinho, the almost 21 from Gremio for Arthur ( already in Juventus) or the 19 that are due Girondins for signing Malcolm, which has already been transferred to Zenit. There is also a debt of over 2.4 million with Eibar for the ransom of Marc Cucurella (who has already been transferred to Getafe) or 240 thousand euros to Villarreal by Denis Suárez, who has already been sold to Celta .
Likewise, the ten million that Atlético Madrid must be paid for unspecified preferential rights and which took place as a result of Griezmann’s transfer, although at the time Barça denied that they had a relationship … and that a few come to light. months after he even had to pay an agreement for Luis Suárez’s departure in the direction of the colchonero club.
On the other hand, Barça is waiting to collect 46.4 million euros in transfers, highlighting the 9.4 million from Zenit for Malcolm, four from Rome and Juventus for Carles Pérez and Alexander the Marquis or 5.9 from Getafe de Cucurella. The curiosity in this section is personified by Ronald Araújo, signed on the Boston River in Uruguay … And, according to the memory, he maintains a debt of 1.5 million with Barça through his own transfer.
The report also reveals that the 90 million loan advanced by Goldman Sachs is guaranteed by the income from the company dependent on the Barça club, Licensing & Merchandising, realizing that the crisis suffered by the entity exceeds the impact of the pandemic due to coronavirus, which decreased by 200 million expected last season, without spending levels continuing to rise.
As if that wasn’t enough, for this season, Barcelona has planned an income of 55 million euros, calculating that it could open the Camp Nou to fans in February, with 25 percent of its capacity and that it will reach half of the May total, a forecast which, given the current state of the pandemic, is considered almost impossible to meet and which will therefore adversely affect the budget for the season.