Laporta reveals Barcelona nearly missed UCL spot due to financial issues this season | OneFootball

Barcelona have come a long way from where they were under the presidency of Josep Maria Bartomeu, the man who took the club’s finances to an all-time low and left the club sinking in debt.

A series of economic levers, contract renegotiations, and smart transfer manoeuvres have helped them get past the worst, although they are still not at the financial 1:1 rule – something Joan Laporta has set as a target for the foreseeable future.

The road to getting to where the club is, however, has been anything but easy.

After all, Barcelona have not only had to put up with La Liga’s strict regulation enforcements and struggle with player registrations but also manage to diffuse the situation with UEFA.

Laporta’s shocking revelation

Speaking during the General Assembly, Laporta revealed that the use of several economic levers almost got the team suspended from the UEFA Champions League for a year.

In fact, he brought out that he had to negotiate with UEFA and ensure such a sporting sanction was not applied to the team for the levers activated to get through the rough circumstances the club was experiencing.

“The reflection of levers as a capital increase is the defence argument we made to UEFA for non-compliance with fair play,” he began.

“We lowered a fine from €80 million to €60 million, and then to €15 million without a sports sanction. At first, they wanted to leave us without the UEFA Champions League.”

Laporta reflected on the financial levers. (Photo by Linnea Rheborg/Getty Images)

The president then spoke on how the levers that were applied were inevitable, given the situation in which his board inherited the club from their predecessors.

“The levers were intended to prevent an extraordinary outflow of members and alleviate the situation we found ourselves in four and a half years ago,” he said.

Laporta went on to defend how using financial levers was not a false reflection of capital gain, something UEFA initially claimed violated financial fair play.

“Strictly speaking, leverage is not a capital increase. It is simply a transfer of assets for a specific period of time, which are then recovered.

“In exchange, you receive a certain amount of money. We transferred 25% of our television rights to a fund, which brought us €600 million.

“This amount, which represented around €35 million, will be returned to the club after 25 years. It is a transfer of assets that will be recovered after a certain period of time,” he added.

“This allowed us to save the club,” he concluded.

Source: SPORT