Former Barcelona presidential candidate Victor Font has accused Joan Laporta’s board of negligence, warning the club could lose a whopping $440 million if the Libero group does not shell out the $44 million it agreed to pay.
Barcelona Struck A Deal With Libero Group Last Year
According to a report from Forbes, Barcelona signed a deal with Libero Football Finance AG and private investors advised by NIPA Capital B.V., taking them on as new partners in Bridgeburg Invest — the holding company of Barcelona’s digital company Barca Vision. The investors bought a 29.5% share in Barca Vision for €120 million ($132.05 million), the same chunk that Socios.com and Orpheus Media had purchased.
Shortly after Barcelona announced the deal, Libero confirmed it had bought a 9.8% stake in Bridgeburg for $44 million. Libero was supposed to clear the payment by December 31 but has supposedly missed the deadline. Unless they can show a proper cause for it, the entire deal could go for a toss and leave Barca with a $440 million hole in their finances.
Font Slams Laporta For Striking A Deal With “Unknown” Partners
On Monday (January 1), EFE news agency claimed Barcelona planned to sue Libero over non-payment of dues. Font quoted the post on X (formerly Twitter) and expressed concern over the Blaugrana’s economic future.
La situació és greu i genera una gran preocupació:
🔴 Hi ha €400m de “beneficis” vinculats a aquesta operació que poden desaparèixer de cop. Això obriria de nou un forat patrimonial molt gran al club i agreujaria la situació del Financial Fair Play.
▫️Haver fet aquesta… https://t.co/epTc2Jmtb1
— Víctor Font (@victor_font) December 31, 2023
He wrote:
“There are €400m ($440 million) of “profits” linked to this operation that can suddenly disappear. This would once again open a very large equity hole in the club and exacerbate the Financial Fair Play situation.”
Font also attacked Barcelona president Laporta’s management for doing business with not-so-credible parties and failing to generate additional revenue over the last three years.
Font, who vied with Laporta in the 2021 presidential elections, added:
“Having done this operation on the spot, with unknown partners and without any relevant experience in the audiovisual sector entailed these risks.
“And we continue to waste time, since three years after the elections and a year and a half after selling 49% of Barça Studios, no source of income generation has been built.”
Barcelona have had a hard time meeting Financial Fair Play rules as is, meaning they could be in a big mess if the situation does not improve sooner rather than later. A failure of such magnitude could also be catastrophic for Laporta’s presidential reign.
Add Sportslens to your Google News Feed!
