The square where Barça's secrets are cooked up

BarcelonaIf Joan Laporta and Marc Ciria were to step out onto the balconies of their offices on Barcelona's Diagonal Avenue, they could greet each other and even be close enough to converse despite the background noise of the bustling city life. The Barça president's law firm, Laporta & Arbós, is located at 469 Diagonal Avenue, and Ciria, one of the most active members of the opposition and a potential candidate in next spring's electionsThe headquarters of Diagonal Asset Management, a company specializing in financial asset management, is located at 467 Diagonal Avenue. Both are a two-minute walk from Plaça Francesc Macià, the epicenter for years of breakfasts, coffees, and lunches centered around Barça.

Between these offices and Plaça Francesc Macià, at the corner of Diagonal Avenue and Villarroel Street, there is the Europa Café, the place where Laporta has breakfast with his trusted people Before heading to the Barça offices, Ciria himself frequents this bagel shop as one of his meeting places. But many other figures from Barça and its surroundings also often discuss the club in Plaça Francesc Macià and its surroundings, an area that's a magnet for business. That's why so many offices want to be associated with it.

The Sandor restaurant, located in the same square, is one of the most popular spots for Barça's power brokers and their rivals. One of its frequent visitors is Joan Camprubí, grandson and great-grandson of the Montalt presidents, and a potential presidential candidate. His financial consulting office is on the corner of Carrer de París and Carrer Comte d'Urgell, practically an extension of Plaça Francesc Macià. Another client of Sandor is businessman Jaume Roures, who helped Laporta with the guarantee to become president and who invested in Barça Studios through his holding company, Orpheus Media.

The notary's office that didn't close in the early hours

Laporta struggled to become president of Barça after winning the 2021 elections due to the need to deposit a guarantee of 124.6 million in the League to secure the position. He finally achieved it in the early hours of the morning, thanks to the help of Roures and the businessman José Elías, at the Sultán Zulueta notary office, located at 550 Diagonal Avenue. At this notary office, those present ended up singing the Barça anthem to celebrate the milestone. Perhaps the voices could even be heard from the nearby Francesc Macià square or from the Luz de Gas nightclub, located at 246 Muntaner Street, a place of Laporta's long nights of celebration.

In the 2021 elections, Víctor Font was the second-highest vote-getter. The headquarters of Delta Partners, the consulting firm he co-founded, is also located on Avenida Diagonal, specifically at number 399. It's closer to the Jardinets de Gràcia than to Plaça Francesc Macià. However, the distance isn't enormous; a brisk 10-minute walk is enough to reach it. This location is significant in Barça's recent history because Delta Partners' headquarters was one of the locations where the most signatures were collected for the vote of no confidence against Josep Maria Bartomeu, which led to the Barça president's resignation at the end of 2020.

Awkward Encounters

The convergence of so many people connected to Barça in such a small space has more than once created awkward situations when individuals with opposing views on the club's management, and even with underlying personal tensions, have casually crossed paths. On other occasions, they have simply preferred to pretend not to see each other. One of the most conflictive It happened in 2010: Laporta was walking through Plaça Francesc Macià while answering questions from a journalist when he physically bumped into Toni Freixa. The video, recorded at a time when Sandro Rosell's board, with Freixa as its spokesperson, had filed a lawsuit against Laporta's board, is part of Barça's popular history.

Chance didn't have to do much to make that encounter possible. In 2010, Laporta already had his office at 469 Diagonal Avenue, and his usual meeting place was Pipper's—Europa Café didn't exist yet—which is now closed and was located on the corner of Buenos Aires and Villarroel streets. Freixa, for his part, has his law office at 29 Via Augusta, about a 10-minute walk from Francesc Macià Square, and is another regular at Sandor. Therefore, it was only a matter of time before Laporta and Freixa crossed paths. They still run into each other occasionally, but their relationship has evolved from backstabbing to warm embraces.

People connected to Barça in the 1980s explain that in Plaça Francesc Macià, some Barça players from that era had dodged cars after nights of partying that had resulted in considerable intoxication. But that's another story.