On Saturday, FC Barcelona’s annual general meeting is scheduled. President Joan Laporta can expect a fierce headwind. The main bone of contention is the value of ‘Barca Vision’.
Barcelona’s financial difficulties have been known for a long time, and there are no positive figures to report from the recent past either. The annual financial statement shows a loss of 91 million euros. At least, because the depreciation of “Barca Vision” may turn out to be even higher than the board stated at the end of the financial year.
Laporta nevertheless expects the board to be discharged. But whether that will happen is open to doubt. The opposition in the club is campaigning for the members to vote against these annual financial statements. On Wednesday, various groups of members with names such as “Compromissaris FCB”, “Dignitat Blaugrana” or “Transparencia Blaugrana” published a joint statement. In it, they call on those eligible to vote to vote against it.
Are profits from Barca Vision overstated?
“The member collectives jointly express their concern about the current management of the FC Barcelona board of directors, a management that leaves much room for improvement; a management that has so far been characterized by a lack of planning and rigor, a lack of the promised transparency that we understand to be appropriate, and a lack of proactive behavior in promoting real member participation,” the communiqué reads. The value of the digital business unit Barca Vision is overestimated, so that the 208 million profit from this special item does not correspond to reality.
The groups are therefore calling for the accounts to be rewritten. If that happens, it would be a hard blow for the already controversial President Laporta.
Unsurprisingly, Víctor Font is also among the critics. He clearly lost out in the presidential election in the 2021 re-elections – Laporta won 54.28 percent of the vote, while Font received 29.99 percent. “I ask the members to vote against the approval of the budget. We continue to see the same tricks as in Bartomeu’s previous term,” Font said in a press conference on Tuesday. ‘We don’t know how to manage the immense capacities that Barca has. Because of that, we are being deceived. They are selling us a false narrative.’
