Needs an accountant – FC Barcelona

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How one of the world’s top sporting institutions lost the greatest player of all time and saddled itself with enormous debt 

Before the pandemic, Barcelona became the first club in any sport ever to breach $1bn (£722m) in revenues. Today, the Financial Times reports, its gross debt is $1.4bn, much of it short-term. 

Now, with Spain’s top league (La Liga) blocking it from spending any more cash that it doesn’t have, it has suffered the unthinkable loss of its talisman, Lionel Messi, to nouveau riche Paris Saint-Germain – despite the player reportedly agreeing to stay in Catalonia and cut his pay by half. 

With player wages making up 95% of the club’s income even without Messi, the club faced beginning the season unable to register new signings, unless it could offload some high earners in order to make room in the budget. 

How did the once all-powerful Catalan side get here? As with most spectacular declines, its roots actually go much deeper than what is immediately apparent – in this case, to the mid-2010s. In total, Barcelona spent over €1bn on transfers between 2014 and 2019, more than any other sports team in the world, yet that outlay did not translate into results on the pitch. 

Huge signings, such as Brazilian star Philippe Coutinho from Liverpool and Ousmane Dembélé from Borussia Dortmund cost €160m and €145m respectively in 2018, but failed to live up to expectations. Nor did similarly expensive acquisitions such as French forward Antoine Griezmann and Bosnian midfielder Miralem Pjanic, as the club’s scatter-gun approach to player transfers manifested itself in disjointed performances on the field. 

By last August, after an 8-2 thrashing by Bayern Munich in the Champions League, Barça’s financial crisis became acute. The club needed to shift overpaid older players for whom there was little demand. Former Liverpool star Luis Suárez was informed in a one-minute phone call that his services were no longer needed. He promptly signed for Atletico Madrid, with whom he won La Liga last season. 

When huge investments such as these fail, the resources to fix them dwindle, and soon Barcelona stopped shopping at Harrods and began looking for answers in the bargain bin. Instead of signing the very best in world football, the club turned to journeymen such as Denmark forward Martin Braithwaite – who had a disappointing spell at Middlesbrough in the Championship, England’s second tier, between 2017 and 2019. 

Still, results worsened on the field and Barcelona stopped winning trophies. So what now? At the last AGM, a proposal to borrow a further €525m was passed in order to restructure the club’s finances and, while welcome, it will do little to address the issues on the pitch. 

In tying the club’s successes so tightly to Messi – the greatest player ever – the club became extremely short-sighted and failed to spread its risk. Now, without him, it is bereft.   

“Barcelona spent over €1bn on transfers between 2014 and 2019, more than any other sports team in the world…” 

Photograph: Getty Images

Calum Fuller Calum Fuller is editor of AT and 20 magazines. He's previously served as editor of Credit Strategy, assistant editor Accountancy and began his career at Accountancy Age..

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