BARCELONA (Reuters) – Barcelona accredited on Thursday the sale of a minority share of their licensing and merchandising division and the cession of as much as 25% of earnings from their LaLiga TV rights in a bid to enhance their monetary state of affairs.
The membership board hopes it will allow them to complete the monetary yr with out losses and improve their spending restrict.
Club president Joan Laporta stated they anticipate to promote as much as 49.9% of retail operation Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising (BLM) for 200-300 million euros and a minimal of 200 million every 10% of the LaLiga TV rights for 25 years.
The plan to promote BLM acquired 89.3% backing from 636 contributors (solely 14.2% of the membership’s complete delegates), whereas the TV rights deal received 86.8% assist.
“When we arrived final yr, we discovered ourselves in a really difficult monetary state of affairs. We could not afford the payroll of May 2021. Investors had been demanding 200 million euros that we didn’t have,” Laporta advised the meeting.
“We consider that utilizing membership’s belongings to create monetary levers is one of the simplest ways to carry again Barca to being aggressive once more.”
Laporta, who presided over one of Barca’s most profitable intervals between 2003 and 2010, was elected final yr for a second stint with the Catalan giants after the earlier board resigned because of the membership’s worsening funds and different controversies.
He inherited a deep monetary disaster exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and, restricted by LaLiga’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) guidelines, Barca had been unable to re-sign membership nice Lionel Messi who left as a free agent for Paris St Germain final summer season.
Laporta stated in August the membership’s money owed totalled 1.35 billion euros, 673 million of which is owed to banks.
Barca in December accredited monetary plans to renovate their well-known Camp Nou stadium, together with elevating a further 1.5 billion euros in debt.
In March, Barcelona signed a shirt and stadium sponsorship cope with audio streaming platform Spotify (SPOT.N) in an settlement price 280 million euros.
(Reporting by Fernando Kallas, modifying by Ed Osmond)