The latest fallout from the Barça VIP box drama

BarcelonaThe electoral campaigns have begun in broad daylight at Barça. From outside the club, it is highlighted that potential candidate Marc Ciria is collecting signatures to prevent BLM (the Barça trade) from becoming a new lever for Joan Laporta's board to save short-term profits in exchange for selling the club's assets. His goal is to have enough signatures (around 3,500) to make the issue an item on the agenda at the October shareholders' meeting. From within, Laporta's board, through friends like economist Xavier Sala i Martín, accuses Jaume Collboni's City Council of delaying permits for the return to Camp Nou for electoral reasons. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen.

Collboni himself also had his say this week, stating that although BSM (Barcelona Municipal Services) is the tenant of the Lluís Companys Olympic Stadium, the City Council has no interest in extending Barça's stay at Montjuïc to make money. Quite the contrary. Collboni assured RAC1 that "the City Council is interested in freeing Lluís Companys because it's a cultural space for concerts." However, those close to Laporta aren't so sure. "They're charging us half a million euros for each match at Montjuïc, that's why they don't want us to go to Camp Nou. They'll extend it as long as they can," a person close to the Barça president told ARA.

Although he admits that Laporta's board hasn't done everything right regarding the return to Camp Nou, especially when it comes to setting dates that have subsequently not been met, he points out that "the only person who is in charge can make mistakes" and states that "the environment systematically puts spokes in the wheels." The return to Camp Nou is the economic, social, and sporting straw that has been thrown this season. The rush, from these perspectives, is more than justified, and every day that passes there are new examples that prove it. One of the latest has been the update of the salary caps for La Liga teams.

Barça's salary cap is drastically reduced.

Javier Tebas's La Liga has announced that Barça's new salary cap is €351.2 million. That's €112.3 million less than the last update, last winter. What are the reasons? The most obvious was explained by Javier Gómez, the La Liga's general corporate director: "Barça's €112 million coincides with the €100 million for the stadiums." VIP. There was an auditor [Abauding] who said yes and then another [Crowe, the current one] who said no and took the 100 million from them."

Without the validation of Barça's auditor, the League does not have the possibility of giving those 100 million in bonds as leverage in the fair play The Catalan club's financial situation. And this situation doesn't seem likely to change until Barça can use the asset in question upon its return to Camp Nou. Along with the value of the Barça Produccions (the audiovisual and digital segment) and Locksley Invest (25% of Barça's television rights in La Liga for the next 25 years), the boxes VIP Camp Nou are the workhorse of Laporta's board with Crowe ahead of the 2024/25 financial year. Time is running out to reach a final decision because the shareholders' meeting is just around the corner.

Clues to the end of the financial year

Barça's figures for the 2024/25 season are still a secret, even though the financial year closed on June 30th. Three months have already passed since then. The only thing that is known is that Laporta explained in May that the club estimated it would close with around 950 million euros in revenue. But he said nothing about expenses or whether it would close with a profit or a loss. "The fact that you have 112 million euros less than the salary cap means that you have a deviation in the value of that figure compared to the budgets you presented in January to La Liga," a Barça economics specialist explained to ARA.

What items could have caused this deviation? "La Liga itself is putting the spotlight on the stadiums." VIP. But the deviation goes beyond that. Therefore, either there has been less revenue than expected or there has been more expenditure than expected. But if the 950 million in revenue that Laporta mentioned, which is more than budgeted [893], actually comes true, then it will mean that expenditure [873 million budgeted] has increased above what was expected," the expert continues. "Be that as it may, the 112 million reduction in the salary cap is not a good sign. Add to all this.