The second telematic assembly in the history of Barça ended the same as the first:
Joan Laporta
and his Board have carte blanche to activate their famous economic levers, the sale of up to 49.9% of BLM, the company that manages Barça merchandising, and up to 25% of the television rights of the League for a maximum of 25 years.
In both cases, blindly, without official figures involved, but with the declared intention of entering, at least, a total of 600 million euros.
An amount that, according to the leader, would allow the necessary operations to be carried out so that professional teams, especially the first soccer team, can be competitive.
4,478 delegates were summoned.
But, in the end, as always, many fewer actually voted.
Of them, only some senators, that is, the oldest members, the former presidents, some members of the commissions, the Síndic del Soci and the full board were present in the room, although they voted electronically.
In total, of the 671 active pledgees at the time, 568 voted for the BLM sale, 65 voted against, and 13 voted blank.
As for the sale of television rights, meanwhile, of the 586 delegates authorized at that time, 494 voted in favor, 62 voted against and 13 voted blank.
The agreement for the sale of up to 49.9% of BLM, as explained by the Barcelona president, could mean revenue of between 200 and 300 million euros.
Always, with the possibility of controlling the possible resale to a third party and maintaining the option of repurchasing the percentage sold before the end of his mandate.
Regarding the sale of up to 25% of the television rights for a maximum of 25 years, Laporta pointed out that they want to obtain a minimum of 200 million euros for each 10%.
In this case, maintaining control of a possible resale.
Currently, the club receives 165 million euros a year from the League, and the sale would mean losing some 41 million euros, which, as he explained, are compensated with the agreement with Spotify.
“We are aware of what we are asking for, but we have it under control,” he reiterated.
The attack on Thebes
Laporta, of course, has already left an environment that is fully conducive to the approval of these two levers that, according to the current board, the club needs to activate to overcome its delicate economic situation and become competitive again.
And he did it with a speech in which the figure of
Javier Tebas
, the president of the LFP, and the famous agreement with CVC appeared in no small detail.
“If we continue with losses, our rivals see us as weak.
And not only them.
People with power in regulatory bodies put many obstacles in our way, obsessively.
We will do it by ourselves, without going to other operations that they want us to go to to have us supervised and controlled », he sentenced.
“The fair play
rule
goes according to how it is dictated 600 kilometers from here.
Now, we have received a circular with a law, surely anti-Barça, according to which we cannot register a player in the youth or subsidiary and play in the first team, as has always been done.
That is why we also have to activate those levers », Laporta complained without naming the affected player, although it was quite clear that he would be talking about the former racing player Pablo Torre.
“We need these levers to be able to compete against state clubs, whose money does not come from the football industry.
We fight with our assets and our brand.
Neither they, with all the money in the world, nor the pressures that come from more than 600 kilometers away, from those who want to prevent us from being a reference again, will be able to buy our essences, our history or our way of understanding society, sport and the country", stressed a Laporta who, of course, also recalled the terrible economic inheritance received after passing through the leadership of the club from the board led by Josep Maria Bartomeu, which would have ultimately generated the need to activate these springs finally approved by the assembly.
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Joan Laporta
Joseph Maria Bartomeu
FC Barcelona