Laporta won the 2021 elections thanks to his charisma and for knowing how to nurture the memory of a glorious past. When he returned to what was his presidential office for seven years (the best, by the way, in the history of Barça) it didn’t take long for him to assimilate the magnitude of the tragedy. The club was on the verge of bankruptcy. In a state of collapse. And with a gigantic triple economic, sports and institutional crisis.
Laporta only had, then, two options. The first was to be prudent and bet on a conservative policy with the aim of paying off the debt and slowly recovering financial balance. It was a legitimate position, defended even by some of his fellow board members, which, however, implied giving up having a competitive team because it would not have been possible to undertake large signings such as Lewandowski or Koundé.
BRAVE OR UNCONSCIOUS?
The other alternative was more risky (unconscious, some say) and involved betting everything to start the virtuous circle 2.0, even if that meant pulling levers and putting the club even more in debt… with the hope that the titles would come and the resurrection of the entity. Laporta, logically, bet on being brave (insane, others say) and took money from where there was none to build a team that has brilliantly conquered the League and that should be the basis of a great project.
Laporta knows Barça’s members better than anyone, connects perfectly with the fans, and knows that the Catalans would not have endured two or three years of traveling in the desert. You had to win titles from the start. To achieve the necessary stability to continue growing. To start visualizing a triumphant future. To recover pride and illusion. It was achieved and now the challenge this summer is to further improve the squad to also be able to compete in the Champions League.
WITHOUT ‘FAIR PLAY’
Unfortunately, without ‘fair play’ for big signings it will be very difficult. The club continues to fight against this slab that is disproportionate wages (although Messi, Griezmann, Piqué, Busquets, Jordi Alba are no longer there… and the termination of Mirotic’s contract is being negotiated) and juggling to be able to register footballers. There is already talk that the directors will have to present a personal guarantee (as the president himself and the treasurer Ferran Olivé did last season) to get a little more margin.
The circumstances are not the best. But Laporta is willing to work a second miracle. He will need it to silence the criticism of those who assure that Barça is worse today than it was two years ago…