The president of FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta , admitted this Friday that the renewal of Lionel Messi would have ” put at risk” the future of the entity, which is why the Argentine star will not continue in the Barca team.
“Unfortunately we have received a disastrous inheritance , with a sports wage bill that represents 110 percent of the club’s total income. Making an investment of the volume that Messi’s contract entailed involved certain risks and we do not want to put the club at further risk . “, I acknowledge.
laportaHe explained that the only possibility of registering Messi was to accept the LaLiga agreement with the CVC international fund , willing to inject 2,700 million euros into the competition and that allowed Barca to increase by 15% the item dedicated to the wage bill of Template.
“For LaLiga to extend this financial ‘fair-play’, it turns out that Barca had to be in favor of an operation that involved mortgaging part of the club’s television rights for half a century. And I’m not willing to do that for anyone, not even for the best player in the world”, stated the director of the Barca entity.
At this crossroads, a decision had to be made, and Laporta and Messi set yesterday, Thursday, as the deadline to do so: “I’m sad, because we’ve had to bring forward the post-Messi era by two years, but we’ve done what’s best for him club”.
According to the president of Barca, there have been “more than two months of negotiations ” to find a formula that would allow the ’10’ to be registered, but finally that formula has been found.
“The first agreement we reached was for a two-year contract to be paid in five, but LaLiga does not accept the ‘cash’ criterion as in other countries. Later, we went on to a five-year contract trying to make LaLiga more flexible , but it wasn’t possible either.”
The leader thanked Rosario’s star for his predisposition, “who has provided all the facilities he could and more” to reach an agreement.
” Messi wanted to stay and Barca wanted to stay, but we didn’t have a salary margin to make it possible. Without Leo we didn’t meet the ‘fair-play’ either . The salary limit is extremely exceeded,” he summarized.
In this sense, Laporta justified his initial optimism in his ignorance of some numbers that have turned out to be “much worse than what they had told us.”
“After knowing the first conclusions of the audit, the expected losses for this last season, which had to be around 200 million euros, will be 487 million, more than double the forecast. And the expected debt is also much higher”, explained Joan Laporta.
In this regard, he recalled that “the dire and disastrous management of the previous board is a burden that does not disappear overnight”. And he pointed out that the problem of salary mass are not only the high tabs that most members of the staff receive, but also “the high amortizations” that must be faced due to “disproportionate investments” in signings.
“To give you an idea : the ratio we have of salary limit is 4-1. To enter 25 million salarywe have to release 100. That’s a lot of reduction”, he revealed to the press during his appearance at the 1899 Auditorium of the Camp Nou.
Even so, the president of FC Barcelona is confident that the wage bill will pass this season from representing 110% of the income to 95%, although it will still be far from the desired 65 or 70%
He also believes that “there will be no problems”, according to the criteria managed by the entity, to register the four signings of this course: The defenders Eric Garcia and Emerson Royal and attackers Sergio Aguero and Memphis Depay.
What does seem clear is that the club will have to get used to living without Lionel Messi, from today, whom Laporta was full of praise and insisted that he deserves the eternal recognition of the institution.
“The tribute to Messi will be the one he wants and wants to do. We would do it every day for everything he has given. But we know about the health and economic circumstances, and that makes it complicated. I hope to see the tribute one day he deserves in can Barca”, he concluded.
