A few days ago, an interview with Jorge Alcover, CEO of Goldman Sachs, generated considerable debate. The main message he conveyed to Everything costs money. The report from Catalunya Ràdio was reassuring: according to the bank, the financing agreement with Barça does not jeopardize the club's ownership or its membership model. Formally, this is true. But focusing the debate solely on ownership is only scratching the surface of the problem.

One of the few moments that broke the monotony from 11 am of the recent assembly It was when Joan Laporta called "scholars" and "mestretites" to critics around Barça while talking about preserving the club's ownership model. "The board I chair is the guarantor that Barça belongs to its members. Perhaps we are the only guarantors. Those who say that Barça is a company, those scholars, those mestretites that give lessons, alert and far away," Laporta said to the delegate members while raising his voice. But the same week, the club's treasurer, Ferran Olivé, had said that Goldman Sachs, the investment fund backing the financing of Espai Barça, was the one who chose Limak as the construction company for the remodeling of the Camp Nou.

Barça announced this Friday that it has closed a bond issue worth 424 million euros, allowing it to refinance 40% of the debt related to the Espai Barça before the return of the men's first team. to the Camp Nou on August 10 to compete in the Joan Gamper Trophy. With the participation of Goldman Sachs, which is handling the transaction from the investors' point of view, Barça has converted, through the same existing financial structure, a total of €424 million of debt used for the construction of the new stadium, which had an initial maturity in 2028, into a new structure that will begin to be repaid in 2033 and will be fully paid off in 2050.

The renovation of Camp Nou and the interest generation from the financing that is allowing the works to be carried out are progressing in parallel. This is one of the ways in which the twenty investment funds that have provided credit so Barça can undertake its most important project of the 21st century do business. According to the 2024 report of the Espai Barça securitization fund, published by the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) this spring, the Blaugrana club has accumulated €132.4 million in accrued interest (i.e., not yet paid) without any of it having been amortized. The first €46.9 million were generated in 2023, and the remaining €85.5 million, in 2024.

The hectic movements of Barça's players on the pitch have given way to action in Aristides Maillol's offices. While player renewals are being finalized, with Lamine Yamal's being the most prominent, the club is keeping an eye on the shadow of the great sword of Damocles on the horizon in financial matters: some €800 million must be repaid from the financing of the Espai Barça construction project. before 2028. The figure is a result of the bonds (122.5 million for the first maturity of the operation), interest, and bridge loans. However, this forecast is likely to be adjusted due to the construction work on the asset that should allow the repayment of the financing for the Espai Barça, the remodeled Camp Nou, They are almost a year late.