The inside story of a tour saved in extremis
The club has already received the 5 million euros it had agreed upon and has unblocked the trip to Japan.
BarcelonaBarça's tour of Japan and Korea has finally been saved. The team traveled to Kansai Airport at noon this Friday. "This comes after the promoter has resolved all the issues that two days ago led the Blaugrana club to cancel its participation in the match against Vissel Kobe, which is back on the schedule (July 27)," the club stated in a statement. With this first leg of the tour over, the Catalan team will travel to South Korea, where it has two more matches scheduled against FC Seoul (July 31) and Daegu FC (August 4). Thus, after the cider that left the club traveling to the tour a day later than planned, the initial plan remains in place.
The club was working against the clock all day on Thursday to try to find a solution after canceling the trip on Wednesday due to non-payments from the promoter, the Korean company D-Drive. The news broke on Wednesday night, coinciding with the presentation of Marcus Rashford, the latest Barça signing. But long before then, activity was already frenetic in the club offices. "We've been chasing payments for weeks, even months, that ultimately never arrived," club sources at ARA maintain. What's more, they admit that they've "already suspected for a couple of months" that this could happen. They had indeed received the €10 million payment for the matches in Korea (against FC Seoul and Daegu), but not the money for the match in Japan (against Vissel Kobe (Sunday, July 27)) or the travel expenses.
In fact, the same sources maintain that the deadline It was due to end a few weeks ago. Since then, the club's managers had been promised that payment would be made. The club didn't want to raise the issue because these non-payments "are relatively common." On other occasions, trips had even been made despite not receiving the full amount upfront, because the bulk of the agreed-upon terms were paid in, leaving a portion outstanding that ended up being paid during the tour or in the following days. But this time, Barça, with its cash flow stretched and under scrutiny, decided to take a stand when they saw that the money wasn't arriving.
D-Drive were the promoters and were the ones who were supposed to pay the full amount owed, corresponding to the Japanese portion of the tour, despite trying to avoid blame by accusing the Yasuda Group, based in Japan, which was the subcontracted company to organize the match against Vis. But Barça continued to demand the money from D-Drive, whose CEO is Seul Ham and which includes two directors: Albert Luque—a former executive of the Spanish Football Federation—and former extension player Fernando Soler. Luque is a close friend of Enric Masip, advisor to president Joan Laporta at Barça. But Masip has denied having any direct involvement in the organization of the tour or having given Luque any favors. The fact is that it was the first time Barça had turned to this company to organize a preseason tour.
Nerves in Japan and the entry of Rakuten
When Barça announced on Wednesday afternoon that it wouldn't travel, the uproar among the authorities and the various stakeholders was enormous. "People got very nervous," the club admitted. In the Kobe region—and throughout Japan in general—there is a large number of Barça fans who were eagerly awaiting this friendly. However, the Blaugrana team remained steadfast. They also threatened to cancel both matches in Korea as a pressure measure (although Barça, behind closed doors, has always maintained that it wanted to travel and collect the full amount).
D-Drive also didn't want to be left without Barça in Japan and set about hiring a charter company to transport the entire Barça expedition to their country, also assuming its own costs. While they were working on this, Rakuten appeared on the scene. The Japanese parent company had been Barça's main sponsor and was willing to pay the outstanding amounts. Finally, Rakuten made the payment of the remaining 5 million on Thursday, as Barcelona sources told ARA.
From then on, everything depended on the logistics of the trip, which also had its consequences. Not only regarding the airline, but also with internal travel within Japan, diets, reorganizing training sessions... He even gave Hansi Flick a helping hand, focused on improving his team's preparation for the start of the official season with the first matchday of La Liga on August 16 at home to Mallorca. Reorganizing everything is what explains why he finally ended up leaving for Japan this Friday morning, 24 hours later than planned before all the fuss began.
Despite considering leaving Barça because he is the CEO of Al Nassr in Qatar, sports vice president Rafael Yuste is traveling on the tour. Vice President Elena Fort, on the other hand, will not be attending, in order to expedite the Camp Nou reopening permits that Barcelona City Council must issue. Sporting director Deco is also not on the expedition, as he continues to work on the additions and departures for the 2025-26 squad. Finally, Barça, under Hansi Flick's second season, will play its first minutes in a friendly this Sunday (12 p.m.) against Vissel Kobe.
