Spanish giant Barcelona is working to get its finances in order and believes it can restore the club’s balance sheet – total assets minus total liabilities – for the 2024-25 season, the club said on Thursday. Financial Vice President Eduard Romeu.
Barça’s board of directors will present the results for the 2021-22 financial year to the Club’s Board of Directors on Sunday, which show 98 million euros in profits after taxes, after losses of 97 million euros the previous year due to the pandemic.
Romeu said that Barça had closed 2021-22 with operating income of 1,017 million euros and operating expenses of 856 million.
Regarding the budget, the objective for the 2022-23 season is to invoice 1,452 million and obtain a profit after taxes of 275 million.
Romeu said that the club’s debts, which amount to 1.35 billion euros – of which 673 million were owed to banks – had been reduced to 1 billion, according to Barca’s estimates.
The so-called levers Romeu referred to are the steps the current board of directors took earlier this year to convert the club’s assets into cash in a bid to improve the financial situation.
Barça agreed to sell 25% of its LaLiga television rights for the next 25 years to the US private capital group Sixth Street for 607.5 million euros and approved the sale of a minority stake in its audiovisual division to Socios .com and Orpheus Media for $200 million.
THE BIGGEST PROBLEM
However, the club’s biggest problem continues to be the salary bill for the first team, which amounts to 518 million euros, 51% of the budget, a problem that according to Romeu cannot be solved until the 2024-25 season, with a goal of place the figure at 500 million.
However, growing speculation about the possible return of a club great, Lionel Messi, who will be a free agent at the end of the season when his current contract with Paris Saint Germain expires, means that the Argentine remains on his radar.
“The president has already said that Leo is an asset to Barça and will always have the club’s doors open… You already know that we know how to perform miracles,” added Romeu.
Club president Joan Laporta, who presided over one of Barça’s most successful spells between 2003 and 2010, was elected last year for a second term after the previous board resigned over worsening club finances and other polemics.
He inherited a club mired in a financial crisis aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic and, restricted by LaLiga’s financial fair play rules, Barça were unable to renew Messi, who left PSG as a free agent.
Since then, Laporta has tried to improve the club’s financial situation with economic levers and by bringing in new sponsors as part of plans to refurbish the stadium.
In March, the club signed a jersey and stadium sponsorship deal with audio streaming platform Spotify (NYSE ) in a €280 million deal.
In December, Barça approved financial plans for the Camp Nou works, including obtaining an additional 1.5 billion euros of debt.