true to his style, Joan Laporta he loves living on the edge (that’s how he got the guarantees, that’s how he balanced the accounts hours before June 30), and that’s how he closed the deal with James Rouresadministrator of Orpheus Media, the company that has acquired 24.5% of Barça Studios for 100 million euros.
It is the fourth and, for the time being, the last sale of assets (“levers” as the Barça president himself would say), essential to allow the registration of the five signings made this summer. Five (Kessié, Christensen, Raphinha, Lewandowski and Koundé, the only sacrificed), which are six, with Dembélé. And six that are, in the end, seven because the renewed Sergi Roberto is also included. Everyone will be able to debut against Rayo, except the former Sevilla defender.
In the last corner, with the clock threatening Barça’s image, he saved laporta the complex fits into the salary fair play set by LaLiga chaired by Javier Tebas. And as happened in his day with guarantees, it was Roures, administrator of Orpheus Media and founder of Mediapro, the same person who freed him from a serious problem.
Last minute change
Although the club had negotiated with GDA Luma, an investment fund that belongs to Gabriel de Alba, owner of Cirque du Soleil, in recent weeks Roures’ proposal, which allows Laporta to register, came into action. In the morning the agreement, in the evening, the registration in the League.
“Barça is strong enough to save itself,” the audiovisual businessman told SER-Catalunya, revealing that “the agreement was signed at eight in the morning” yesterday, interrupting the businessman’s vacation.
On Friday morning Laporta signed the agreement with Roures and at night LaLiga registered Lewandowski, Kessié, Christensen, Raphinha, Sergi Roberto and Dembélé
Just about the deadline for LaLiga to validate it, also allowing Barça to clean up the negative own funds that have been strangling it for several months. “We come from a scenario, sorry, of shit that our friends Bartomeu and company have left us,” Roures said, recalling that Barça was the only First and Second club with a negative balance in the salary limit: minus 144 million.
With this agreement, as the club recalled in its official statement, it “complements the one that was already signed on July 29 with Socios.com to accelerate the growth of the club’s digital strategy, NFT and Web.3.”
In the last month and a half, Barça received almost 800 million euros from the sale of four assets with three different partners: Sixth Street, an American investment fund, kept 25% of the television rights for the next 25 years In exchange for 537 million, Socios.com obtained 24.5% of Barça Studios for 100 million, the same that Orpheus Media paid for the remaining 24.5% of that audiovisual content producer where the club continues to hold the majority of the Actions.
Bartomeu, 220 million
Bartomeu, in August 2021, sent a letter in which he accused Laporta of “inaction” for not accepting the Barça Corporate project, which allowed “the entry of strategic partners up to 49% for the joint exploitation of the four commercial assets not directly linked to income from sports competitions, which would have allowed a minimum capital inflow of 220 million”.
In a month and a half, Laporta has gathered almost 800 million euros to inject into the field. Bartomeu proposed 220 for 49% of Barça Corporate
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A year later, Laporta has injected almost 800 to first balance the accounts and give Xavi everything he has asked for. “We are very optimistic, we will get out, maybe not one hundred percent,” the coach admitted this Friday, three hours before the League validated the registration of six, entering the 1/1 rule. For every euro that goes out, one euro can come in.
Roures, who already endorsed the leader at the last minute a year and a half ago, has now come to the rescue by activating the fourth lever
Koundé is left out due to the surplus of centrals (four on the payroll) and is pending that Barça now release salary mass. Either for a transfer (perhaps Memphis agrees to go to Juventus) or for salary reductions of the ‘sacred cows’ (Piqué is closer than that of Busquets). But Laporta, in the last corner, got away with it, rescued, in the end, by Roures.