This is how the multi-million dollar business of Barça's former glories works.

BarcelonaThe retired footballers, wearing official Barça uniforms, arrived at the hotel in Kinshasa (capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo) after training to rest in their rooms, where they had their suitcases. But some were surprised to find their magnetic cards wouldn't open the doors. When they asked the hotel staff for an explanation, they were told that the promoters of the match they were going to play against local legends hadn't yet paid for some of the rooms and that, until they did, they wouldn't be able to enter.

"That has now changed [the events described took place in November 2023]. Barça has taken a very serious approach to the organization and conditions of the Legends. The club demands payment before the trip to avoid the non-payments it had encountered during the project," a person who is part of the Legends explained to ARA. Barça will play three Clásicos against Real Madrid between March 23 and April 13 in San Juan (Puerto Rico), Mumbai (India), and Toluca (Mexico). Three Clásicos in 21 days. "You build a brand and earn hundreds of thousands of euros per club in places where the first team would hardly set foot," one of those responsible for promoting the project in the past tells this newspaper.

Barça and Madrid have seen this as a very lucrative business opportunity. Barça receives a fixed fee for the use of the Legends brand, and the match promoter negotiates with and pays the stars who attend. These stars include names like Ronaldinho, Puyol, Rivaldo, and Villa. Ronaldinho has his own schedule because his cachet requires him to attend certain publicity events. He is accompanied by his brother and manager, Roberto de Assís, and a person who manages his social media. Sometimes, Ronaldinho arrives at the match with little time to spare.

The promoter negotiates the fees separately with each star; the amount in question varies depending on each event and is not usually shared between teammates, as the differences can be obvious. However, as ARA has been able to confirm, mid- and low-profile players, who all earn the same, can pocket around €10,000 to play one of these. bowling of veterans.

Figo plays with Madrid

The last Clásicos involving retired footballers were on November 28 in Doha (Qatar) and December 15 in Tokyo (Japan), where all 50,000 available tickets were sold out. "The sales process was faster than that of the friendly that the Barça first team played in Japan in 2023 against Iniesta's Vissel Kobe," reports the club. Between November and April, five official Clásicos between Barça and Real Madrid legends will have been played in distant lands. In addition to Ronaldinho, Puyol, Rivaldo, and Villa, Barça idols such as Iniesta, Xavi, Belletti, Márquez, and Robert Kluivert have also played against Real Madrid icons such as Casillas, Roberto Carlos, Cannavaro, Seedorf, and Figo. The Barça triumphed in Doha and Tokyo.

Interference from other actors

Retired Barça Legends players sign exclusive contracts. However, there are other players trying to make money from these types of events. This happened in December, when former Barça player Luis García and former Real Madrid player Fernando Morientes organized a veterans' derby in Hong Kong. Morientes was able to use the Real Madrid Leyendas brand, but García wasn't so lucky with Barça, which only found out about the match at the last minute. The match was played with former Barça players such as Xavi, Puyol, Henry, and Villa, who played under the name Barça Heroes and wearing a Barça kit, but with a harlequin design and without the Barça crest. The Catalans won again.

"The commercial and brand departments were very insistent on the business idea," says a person who was involved in the development of Barça Legends, created in 2016 under Bartomeu's presidency with the aim of extracting financial returns from retired players beyond the matches played by the non-profit Barça Veterans Association. "The goal was to have assets to monetize without depending on the first team, but at the same time, having recent stars." Although the Clásicos have now been incentivized, the Legends, led by Josep Maria Meseguer, also director of Barça Licensing & Merchandising (BLM), still play against other teams. On May 16, for example, they will travel to Tbilisi (Georgia) to play against former local footballers.

The controversial visit to Kyrgyzstan

The Barça Legends have played matches in many countries where the first team has never played. One of the most visited continents has been Africa, with destinations such as Mozambique, Zambia, and the aforementioned Democratic Republic of the Congo. Another visit to a less-frequented location was Kyrgyzstan. It took place in August 2023. taking advantage of the inauguration of a Barça Academy in Jalal-Abad –a city of only 75,000 inhabitants– built on state land and financed with money from relatives of Sadir Japarov, the country's president, and the head of the security services, Kamychbek Tashiyev, through the company JalGroup Asia, according to a journalistic investigation by the Kyrgyz media Kloop.

The Legends traveled to Kyrgyzstan accompanied by President Laporta on a three-day trip. There, they played a match against a team of local veterans, in which Japarov played 25 minutes. Barça won the match 3-0 with goals from Rivaldo, Sorín, and Saviola. Currently, journalists in Kyrgyzstan are imprisoned for publishing investigative reports on Japarov's administration, and some human rights activists have been forced into exile. Since Japarov came to power in 2020, there has been a persecution of feminism, the LGBTI community, and press freedom.