BARCELONA – Barcelona unveiled this Monday the closed and audited financial report at the end of the 2019-20 season, which reveals a very delicate financial situation, with a total debt of 1,173 million euros (155 above the previous year) and a warning from the audit that the viability of the club could be at risk. “Future events could be the cause of the Group (the club) ceasing to be a running company,” warns the audit report, warning of the urgent need to correct this situation.
Carles Tusquets, Chairman of the Management Board, already warned when he took office on October 29, of the “serious economic situation of the club”, without going into details that provided last week to the presidential candidates (Joan Laporta, Victor Font i Toni Freixa) Before making them public, as established by the Barcelona statutes, through the annual report.
It reveals worrying details that lead to this total debt of 1,173 million euros, of which 730 are short-term (225 more than a year earlier), with a net debt of 488 million and specifying that at the end of this season, in June 2021, Barcelona has the obligation to pay 266 million to financial institutions, a figure that threatens its liquidity and has led it to request a delay in payments. The 730 million short-term debt is broken down into 265 million in debts with credit institutions, 2.5 million in bonds and other negotiable securities, 164 million in debts with sports personnel and 298 million in other unspecified items.
Contemplating that the wage bill is soaring to 74 percent of total income (when the maximum ratio could not go beyond 60 percent), he realizes the need to lower wages close to 500 million euros that, after the agreement with the staff to defer payments, wants to continue negotiating in the same direction.
It is also contemplated that Barça maintains a debt of 196 million euros with other clubs (126 in the short term), highlighting the almost 70 million still owed to Liverpool by Coutinho, the almost 21 to Gremi by Arthur (already in Juventus) or the 19 due to the Girondins for the signing of Malcom, Which was already transferred to the Zenith. There is also a debt of more than 2.4 million with Eibar for the repurchase of Marc Cucurella (who was already transferred to Getafe) or 240 thousand euros to Villarreal by Denis Suárez, who is already be sold to the Celtic.
Also noteworthy are the ten million that must be paid to Atlético Madrid for unspecified preferential rights and that occurred as a result of the signing of Griezmann, although at the time Barça denied that they had a relationship … And that come to light months after having even had to pay a settlement for the departure of Luis Suárez in the direction of the mattress club.
On the other side of the scale, Barça are pending to receive 46,400,000 euros in transfers, highlighting the 9,400,000 of Zenit for Malcolm, four of Roma and Juventus for Carles Pérez and Alejandro Marquès or 5.9 from Getafe by Cucurella. The curiosity in this section is personified by Ronald Araújo, signed by the Boston River in Uruguay … And who, according to the report, maintains a debt of 1.5 million with Barça for his own transfer.
The report also reveals that the 90 million loan advanced by Goldman Sachs is guaranteed by the income from the subsidiary of the Barça club, Licensing & Merchandising, realizing that the crisis that the entity is suffering is more beyond the impact of the pandemic by the coronavirus, which has decreased by 200 million the revenues projected last season without the level of spending continuing to increase.
To make matters worse, for this season Barcelona had planned revenues of 55 million euros calculating that it could open at the Camp Nou to fans from February, with 25 percent of its capacity and would reach half of the total in May, a forecast that, in view of the current situation of the pandemic is estimated almost impossible to meet and will therefore negatively affect the budget of the season.