The explanations of Joan Laporta and his team on Financing agreement for the Espai Barça they have caused enough concern in a group of partners to the point of considering whether to carry out a challenge. The main reason is the absence in the project of the 1,450 million of an item for the Palau Blaugrana, the Petit Palau and the Palau de Gel, as approved in a telematic referendum in 2021. Several of these partners will attend a meeting at a private home this Tuesday to share ideas and decide how to express their discomfort. The idea of impeachment is on the table.
The proposal for the meeting does not come from any of the opinion groups that gained notoriety during the motion of censure on the Josep Maria Bartomeu presidency. It is a group of members of that minority lineage who cares about the business aspect of the club and who for the moment prefers not to identify themselves. They don’t have them all with them. They do not know if the anger over the failure to comply with what the partners approved is widely shared or, on the contrary, there is a resignation, not to mention a general passivity, which advises public discretion. They fear rather the latter.
All those who will meet this Tuesday agree on the feeling that the critical sense of culé society is asleep and they intend to wake it up, or at least try to. It should be remembered that the complaint of a single partner would be enough to start a legal journey that could stop or sink the financing agreement. In Barcelona’s past there have already been several similar episodes. Joan Laporta, without going any further, lost a year of his first term due to the challenge of a partner named Vicenc Pla.
Where are the 420 million?
The way to attract social attention will possibly be decided this Tuesday. Or maybe not. Perhaps it is only the beginning of a dialogue that will require more time. The challenge would be the most extreme formula and some of those who will attend this meeting have expressed their doubts to EL PERIÓDICO about the appropriateness of it.
They consider that Laporta’s board has committed a too flagrant and poorly concealed deception about the Palau Blaugrana, whose cost, estimated at 420 million in the initial plan, does not fit in any way with the financing scheme presented. They also regret the lack of transparency, which they already identify as a repeated characteristic of the Laportista government. And they criticize that with the Espai Barça he plays deliberately indefinitely. And even so, at least those consulted by this newspaper, weigh in the balance the damage that the challenge would entail for FC Barcelona.
The urgency of the project
He Espai Barça It accumulates too many delays and a legal action would only add another to a project that urgently needs to materialize. The sense of responsibility understood in this way could end up imposing itself. “I think the board plays with that,” says one of the restless partners. Also the precaution of not burning yourself publicly will be a factor that will have an important weight. Everything could end in a simple statement. It remains to be seen.
The only partner, or the most notorious, who has spoken to date in various media about his dissatisfaction with the financing plan and, by extension, the economic direction of the entity is Jaume LlopisDoctor in Economics and Business and member of the Espai Barça committee until 2021, when he was fired Leo Messi. To questions from this newspaper, he confirmed that he would attend this meeting of partners, although he already anticipates that he does not want to become the spearhead of anything.
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He wants to listen and intervene. It will not be necessary for him to repeat what he thinks, that “what they have done is illegal. We approved a credit of 1,500 million for the entire Espai Barça, not only for the stadium. And the Palau does not appear”. It will not be necessary because all those summoned They presumably think the same.
The Laporta board, through the economic vice president Eduard Romeu and the corporate director Maribel MeléndezThey categorically assured that the Palau Blaugrana was part of the project, but once they exposed the breakdown of the 1,450 million, it did not appear anywhere. Let’s remember: 1,071 will go to work on the Camp Nou, the financial costs amount to 179 million and there is a reserve for contingencies imposed by investors of 200 million.