Josep Maria Bartomeu defends his time at Barcelona; claims it wasn’t ‘bad inheritence’ | OneFootball

One of the worst periods in the history of FC Barcelona was marked by the presidency of Josep Maria Bartomeu, who left the club on the verge of bankruptcy in 2021. The club have still not recovered from what happened, all those years ago.

The former president has now pushed back firmly against one of the main criticisms of his presidency, insisting the Barcelona he left behind was not the financial ruin it is often made out to be. For Barca fans, it is a familiar and highly divisive argument, but Bartomeu’s latest defence leaves no doubt about how he still sees that period.

As quoted by Mundo Deportivo, Bartomeu used an interview on Catalunya Radio to reject the idea that he handed Joan Laporta a broken club. His central quote was direct:

He then expanded on that argument by pointing to the club’s position before the pandemic. As Bartomeu put it:

“At that time, Barca was a club in a good sporting and financial position, growing and generating revenue. Covid caused revenue to plummet, and in the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, Barca suffered a loss of 500 million euros, which had a significant impact on the club’s finances.”

From Bartomeu’s perspective, the collapse was not caused mainly by his management, but by the enormous financial shock of the pandemic. From a Barcelona point of view, though, that will remain a hard sell to many supporters, because Covid may explain part of the damage, but it does not automatically erase the wider doubts fans still have about wage growth, squad planning and executive decisions during that era.

Bartomeu also used the interview to raise concerns about what happened after he left. He said:

“I’m concerned about the issue of financial fair play; in 2021, Barca inflated its losses, I don’t know why.” Inflating the losses and not acknowledging that the pandemic had a 500 million euro impact on Barca led to us losing our fair play status, despite LaLiga issuing a report warning of this impact. We could have maintained it.”

From his words, its very clear that Bartomeu is still a man with no remorse over his actions. He destroyed a winning project with one ill-advised decision after another until the club were in absolute shambles, and yet, he has the nerve to come out and defend himself.

If there is one thing we can be absolutely sure of, it is that he will never be seen in any professional capacity at Barcelona again and that’s exactly how it should be.