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Gerard Piqué has a job these days of confinement. In addition to keeping the form at home, he has led the pulse of Barcelona's locker room with the board, resolved with a reduction in player salaries of 70% while the break due to the pandemic lasts. In addition, its business holding company lives these days, like the rest of the market, in a permanent crisis cabinet. While the Davis Cup , the jewel of his sports projects, seems safe for now on the calendar - although highly threatened by the readjustment of the tournaments in the fall - other branches of his business tremble from the unusual coronavirus crisis.

FC Andorra , the Segunda B club that it bought in late 2018 through its investment group Kosmos, is going through serious difficulties. The suspension of the league, with the closing of ticket offices, static advertising and sponsors that this implies, has many modest soccer teams with the anguish of the greats or even more. The Principality club is no exception, despite the financial muscle of its ownership. In Group 3 of the category, where he competes, most of his rivals are filing temporary employment regulation records, the unfortunately now famous Ertes. The difference of Andorra is that this figure of labor aid does not exist in the small Pyrenean state.

"We have some advantages, but also disadvantages", recognizes this newspaper Ferran Vilaseca , the president of a club with a budget of 1.4 million euros, "neither too high nor too low, in the average of Second B", according to aim. These days, he negotiates a sharp drop in wages with employees and staff. He assures that the response is being very positive and that they will soon close a salary reduction agreement between 40 and 50% .

“It is the only way to do something similar to the Ertes that the rest of the Spanish teams are doing. We are very proud of the club's response. Everyone understands the extraordinary and dramatic situation we are experiencing, "explains the manager and one of Gerard Piqué's trusted men on his business adventures.

Cascading ertes

In Group 3 of Second B, the trickle of cries for help, in the form of economic readjustment plans, has not stopped in recent days. Yesterday Badalona joined the list where Hercules, Castellón, Nástic, Cornellá, Prat, Olot, Llagostera, the Barcelona subsidiary were already ... In First and Second the teams still manage the hope of collecting the pending television rights , provided that it could be played even if it was behind closed doors. However, in the bronze category, the income from retransmission is minimal, coming from the Footters platform -about 25,000 euros, collected through the Federation- and from the regional channel on duty. In the case of Andorra, the Catalan TV3, who has only played one game so far, and who is pending to pay the club. Gerard is on top of the club. He understands footballers and thanks them for the effort they are going to make, "says the president.

His calculations of the losses that the coronavirus will cause are around 40% of the annual budget . Always, yes, that the competition can be resumed in the coming months, a possibility that he sees remote. «They are talking about canceling Wimbledon, which is at the end of June, and we are going to be able to play here, even if it is behind closed doors, on those same dates? I see it complicated ... but hopefully ».

Even that compressed and express resolution designed by LaLiga - ending the season playing in the summer - would harm small clubs: «If there are two or three games per week, we would have to sleep outside, and that is extra expenses. In addition, that playing behind closed doors detracts from the competition and breaks the dynamics of the teams. Andorra, with 10 games to go, is in the middle of the table, nine points from the promotion playoffs .

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  • Andorra
  • Gerard Piqué
  • Badalona
  • Castellón
  • LOC
  • sports
  • First division
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