Finally, he broke his silence! One of the worst presidents in Barcelona history, Josep Maria Bartomeu, gave an extended interview to the Mundo Deportivo where he tried to explain his doings during the presidency. And, as expected, there were some memorable quotes from the Spaniard, who basically blamed it all on Covid pandemic, reduced the current debt in his own calculations and revealed that Barca rejected serious offers for Ousmane Dembele and Ansu Fati. Unprecedented in Barcelona’s history: Pedri is the first player with a billion-euro buy-out clauseFirst and foremost, the departure of Lionel Messi. The ‘seed’ was sown during Bartolmeu’s presidency, when the Argentinian officially asked to leave. Even thou it was his misdoings which eventually led to Messi’s departure, Bartomeu didn’t have a problem to address the issue and take an aim at the new regime: “It was a mistake to let Messi leave. It represents much more than a footballer that falls in love. He wanted to leave the club, we talked about it and I said no. I have always thought that Messi is very important for our club, Barca is also very important for him and it would be a serious problem if he left, as I think it has been now. I told him that if he wanted to go like Xavi and Iniesta, to Qatar, China or the United States, something we understood, we can talk about it and we will do a tribute and a farewell. But Messi didn’t have a team yet and he wanted to be free. We told him: ‘We want Barca to be your last club in Europe. If you want to go to another continent later, no problem. But we want you to continue and that was a bit of the story of the summer of 2020. Us telling him that we wanted him to continue and he, that he wanted to leave. But not knowing where. I always asked him where he wanted to go” explained Bartomeu.Tsitsipas stuns Nadal in five sets at Australian OpenFormer president also addressed accusations that during his tenure at the club, the squad actually got worse, and it all began after Neymar’s departure. “His departure does change the balance after a club state pays the 222 million of his clause. And we feared for Messi, with a freedom (400) that was affordable. That caused changes and we renewed Messi in November for four years with a higher clause (700). We signed Dembele and Coutinho providing Barca with other figures to alleviate the departure of a world star like Neymar. In 2020, we received a 150M offer for Ansu Fati from an English club. Accepting that would have balanced the accounts. But no, we rejected it because the priority was the sporting project. An English club offered more than what we paid for Dembele, but we refused” revealed the Spaniard. Sun 22:00 (1.55) BARCELONA (4.40) VALENCIA (6.50)As for ‘hefty’ contract with players, especially the older ones, and permanence bonuses, Bartomeu had another explanation. “This is something that in recent years has been imposed a lot in clubs, especially in England, the loyalty bonus, which is a way that important players, if they are tempted to leave the club one summer, if in September or October there is a permanence or loyalty bonus they would stop charging it. The first contract that I saw him was the one that City made with Aguero many years ago, he had a premium loyalty bonus and that’s normal. What the clubs want is that the important players or the youngsters do not leave. It is normal, if you enter more, the income is adjusted to the salary increase to be within the limits of LaLiga and UEFA. But no one knew that a pandemic would fall in March 2020 and that incomes would drop dramatically and those wage-mass-income ratios skyrocket from 65% to 80, 90 or 100%. Nobody expected it. If we had known that in 2020 there was going to be a pandemic when we started in 2010 or 2015, our strategic plan would have been different and we would have anticipated falling revenues. But it is uncontrollable” said the Spaniard. ‘When something goes wrong in Barca, they always blame the foreigner’And Bartomeu thinks that those debts are not as big as the current management thinks, and that Barca can’t go into the administration due to ‘Royal decree‘ and blamed it all on Covid.“With 180 million benefits, and with Forbes valuing us as the most valuable club in the world, it has been rigorous with a project and a strategic plan that was set especially in 2015. Between 2010 and 2020 we had almost 180 million accumulated but on March 14 the income of the clubs in Europe fell: without ticketing, season tickets, museums, shops. 40% of income falls. We have adjusted what has happened since then. From March 2020 to June 2021 there have been almost 500 million revenue drops and in the 2020-21 financial year there have been 330. Our calculation is that without the Covid we would have lost 50 but not what appears in the media, which makes people dizzy. The club has lost money, with a big impact. Barca is a sports club, and also in the case of the pandemic, the Royal Decree says that losses due to Covid will never be losses that allow the dissolution of the club, which has player assets, equity, digital and has a low but high balance sheet value at the level market. That is why it is impossible that it is at risk of dissolution” reassured Bartomeu.
