Barça prefers a Moldovan accused of fraud rather than two Ibex companies
New Era Visionary Group and its manager Ruslan Birladeanu raise questions in La Liga
BarcelonaA company founded in early 2024, with no proven experience whatsoever – or any familiar faces in the technology sector – was chosen by Barça on 21 November as the new "telecommunications operator for Barcelona" until December 2030, when the new Camp Nou is expected to be fully operational. The agreement with New Era Visionary Group (NEVG), a company defined by the entity as "a world leader in connectivity and infrastructure integrations", was announced without Barça's commercial department being aware of it and after the club's head of purchasing, César Martínez, had been in the company of Joan Laporta since, among other things, providing connectivity to sports infrastructures.
After weeks of talks with Barça to develop strategic projects for their interests, Cellnex and Telefónica were left with a big smile on their faces when the Catalan club published the commitment with NEVG in collaboration with MasOrange, which in November merely echoed the statement issued by Arístides, which is located in a private home in Sant Andreu.
On paper, this mysterious company, which the League has expressed suspicions about following the questionable registrations of Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor, must create a telephone network for Barça members. But MasOrange has not yet agreed on this or on the implementation of any technology at the Camp Nou. In fact, industry sources have told ARA that Barça has recently visited top-level stadiums with technology applicable to the future Barcelona stadium and that neither Ruslan Birladeanu, the founder of NEVG, nor Francisco Maza, the other representative of the company with a share capital of 3,000 euros, were present at these inspections of telecommunications infrastructure.
Birladeanu, a Moldovan by birth and currently a citizen of the United Arab Emirates, where he co-owns the parent company of NEVG, was implicated in an alleged real estate fraud in his country. According to the media outlet Point, founded and chaired a developer selling cheap off-plan apartments. In 2010 the company went bankrupt, leaving its clients without housing and money. The prosecution charged Birladeanu, but the case never went to trial, partly because one of those affected, the then Prime Minister of Moldova Vladimir Filat, did recover his investment, according to the news portal moldau ZDGThe businessman, an expert in the creation of joint ventures, also made deals with Dani Alves, whose company he managed Stars Save Lives LTD, based in London. Now, retrained as a telecommunications expert, he has partnered with Barça to lead the connectivity of the new Camp Nou and will even give a conference at the next Mobile World Congress at the suggestion of the Blaugrana club.
Suspicions in La Liga and another trip by Laporta to the Emirates
But apart from this emerging alliance that is so surprising in the telecommunications sector, NEVG –specifically its Arab parent company– will also contribute 70 of the 100 million euros that Barça says it will receive for the operation of 475 seats. VIP of the future Camp Nou. Although the Barcelona club has insisted on hiding the names of the two companies it chose to carry out this key operation to lift the salary cap of the League, the ARA and other media have been able to confirm that they are the Qatari Forta Advisors and the Emirati NEVG, two unknown companies founded by last year. to exploit the same seats VIP.
In both cases, the money arrived after the deadline for registering Olmo and Victor, who are now playing only thanks to a very cautious order granted by the CSD. However, only with regard to NEVG, the League has expressed doubts about the origin of the 28 million (40% of the 70 agreed) justified on January 3. "We found that the company had a capital of only 3,000 euros," said the president of the employers' association, Javier Tebas, in a statement. The Objective. This argument, together with the fact that the company already has other links with the club, appears on the list of allegations presented by the League to discuss the injunction, according to the statement The Confidential.
After this whole puzzle was made public early last week following a Report published in the ARA, Laporta and two of his executives, Xavier Puig and Joan Soler, went to the United Arab Emirates to attend to "private" business or business related to Barça, according to the source consulted.