Irish Examiner view: Barcelona rolls the dice on staying competitive

Spanish giant has sold 25% of its predicted TV revenues to a US financier for the next 25 years

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang scores Barcelona's first goal against Real Madrid in La Liga Santander in June. Picture: Denis Doyle/Getty Images

After a summer of outstanding Irish sport — the triumph over the All Blacks in New Zealand being a once-in-a-lifetime event — the Premier League returns next weekend for a strangely interrupted season. The competition will cease on Monday, November 14, and not return until St Stephen’s Day. It’s making way for the World Cup in Qatar.

But that is not the only peculiar thing. Those with a knowledge of soccer, and who can work a calculator, know that Barcelona FC, the organisation that likes to say that it is ‘Mes Que Un Club’ — more than a club — was on the point of bankruptcy nearly 12 months ago.

So heavy were the financial and regulatory constraints upon it that it had to allow its greatest-ever star, Lionel Messi, to leave. Other players are owed millions of euro in contractual pay.

This summer, it has been buying players like it is going out of fashion. How can this be? It is because Barcelona has mortgaged its future, selling 25% of its predicted TV revenues to US financiers Sixth Street for the next 25 years.

European Super League

They are relying on the eventual success of something that flared briefly and angrily in the spring of 2021, the European Super League, which would have consisted of 15 permanent members and five rotating participants, allowed to the top table on the basis of the previous season’s domestic success.

Such were fan antipathy and street protests that the six English clubs — Liverpool, Manchester City, Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Tottenham — the two Milans, and Atlético Madrid all withdrew after initially indicating a willingness to participate. Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and Paris St Germain all declined invitations.

The remaining prime movers, Juventus, of Italy, and La Liga’s Real Madrid and Barcelona, remain committed to the concept and are fighting a battle through the European courts to attempt to break the control of UEFA, the governing body, over European competition.

We won’t know the result of that until December 15. The English teams have already given declarations that they will not join any future super league. Barcelona is owned by its members. Its specially commissioned club song, ‘El Cant del Barça’, played at every match at the Spotify Camp Nou, proclaims ‘one flag unites us in brotherhood’.

The Blaugrana’s president, the second-time-around Joan Laporta, is rolling the dice that the Catalan giants will remain competitive and that the ESL is established and increases earning capacity. He was in Las Vegas last week, the city of winners. And losers.