Pau Gasol is back: That was finally good news this week for the long-suffering fans of FC Barcelona. The now 40-year-old basketball hero, something like the Dirk Nowitzki of Spain, once started at Barça before he embarked on his world career in the American NBA. With a foot injury for two years without match practice, he wants to get in shape for the Olympics at home.
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For the second most important department of FC Barcelona it is the next coup after the signing of Nikola Mirotic in 2019. The established NBA star was lured back to Europe even in his prime. A rarity that the then President Josep Maria Bartomeu promoted as part of a pharaonic vision: When he planned to leave in summer 2021, all five professional sections – football, basketball, handball, roller hockey, futsal – should win the European Cup.
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In the meantime, Bartomeu has been chased out of office and Barça is in debt with 1.17 billion euros. How times have changed: At that time, Mirotic was compensated with a net annual salary of around four million euros for the waiver of more lucrative NBA offers. Gasol will play for almost 30,000 euros until the summer, the percentage of the minimum season salary stipulated by the Spanish league. After the first impressions, they can be financed through jersey sales alone.
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Gasol joins a functioning team that just dismantled Real Madrid in the Spanish Cup final and is currently leading the Euroliga. It’s ironic: if it weren’t for the troubled footballers and their 4-1 first leg defeat in the round of 16 against Paris St. Germain, Bartomeu’s dream would even have realistic chances of fulfillment. Barça’s indoor soccer players are reigning champions in the Champions League, in roller hockey you are always among the favorites anyway, the handball players were only defeated in the Champions League final against Kiel last season and are currently leading with 13 wins from 13 games.
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“Més que un club”, more than a club, that is the Barça club motto: Like the social awareness of the mission or the public election campaign for the presidency – the vote on March 7th – the diversity of sports is also an integral part of the club’s self-image. The only question in the current situation is: how long can you still afford it?
45 million euros loss outside of football
According to Barça’s annual report, the departments outside of football – which also include nine amateur sports – lost around 45 million euros in the past season. That is almost half of the stated annual minus of 97.3 million. Basketball players alone accounted for 28.2 million and handball players 7.1 million.
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These expenses are not new. Traditionally, they were financed by surpluses from football and never really denied as investments in brand and prestige. Even now, the three presidential candidates are wary of announcing any concrete cuts in the election campaign. Both favorite Joan Laporta and his most promising rival Víctor Font are talking about wanting to put the departments more on their own. “Like a club within a club,” says Font, every single one should function.
So ideally like the one that currently offers the best return on investment at Barça: that of the female soccer players.
With 16 wins from just as many games and 84: 3 goals, the team around Alexia Putellas, Jenni Hermoso or Lieke Martens plows through the Spanish league, has just won the cup final in 2020 and is once again trying to challenge the permanent winner in the Champions League Olympique Lyon (in the only final in 2019 there was a 1: 4 against the French). It plays attractive combination football in the house style and has grown steadily in recent years.
The women’s team shows how it works
Last but not least, thanks to its own main sponsor, it operates almost revenue-neutral – an anomaly in women’s football, in which a number of top clubs have entered through massive cross-subsidies from the men’s departments. Barça professionalized its women’s team, which had been docked since the 1970s and had been firmly integrated into the club since 2001, for the 2015/2016 season and was able to conclude a contract with the tool manufacturer Stanley for around 3.5 million euros annually in 2018. As a result, the current budget predicts a comparatively low loss of 1.15 million euros, especially in Corona times. However, the contract with Stanley expires after this season – which could soon put the women in a similar situation to the other departments.
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The new president will not only have to refinance the debt in a hurry, but will also have to turn every stone over when it comes to spending. The main focus will of course be on the biggest cost item: the salaries of the first football team. Barça can only get through the pandemic season thanks to a wage deferral negotiated with the stars before Christmas. In the future, however, you will not only need deferrals, but above all cancellations: football salaries amounting to around 130 million euros, as Toni Freixa, the third candidate for election, has calculated.
In comparison, even the basketball players only cost peanuts and deliver the successes that are all the more necessary in the current mood. That applies to the female soccer players anyway. Even if it doesn’t seem to go down well with all presidential candidates.
When TV3 ran a quick quiz this week to find out who they would most like to sign from among the three players, Andrea Pereira, Asisat Oshoala and Leila Ouahabi, nothing happened to Laporta and Font. Only Freixa knew the answer: trick question. All three are already playing for Barça.
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