How Laporta is destroying Barcelona. Instead of healing, he could get the club into even more trouble

What does a manager do when his company is drowning in the red? He tightens his belt, takes crisis measures to cut the debts as much as possible. But Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, is doing the exact opposite. And it could cost the Catalan club dearly.

Barcelona is drowning in huge debts, that’s not news. But instead of trying to get out of them, the management has endured two or three more modest years and returned to the top with smart moves, trying to strengthen the A-team right away at any cost, even though there are no finances for that at all.

Barcelona at the moment can’t even register Andreas Christensen, who comes from Chelsea completely for free. The salary cap that La Liga teams have to abide by shows that the club is in the red. So the Blaugranas first have to get rid of a few players, only no offers are coming in for them.

The Catalans must realise their situation. At the moment they really can’t buy expensive players with big salaries. Especially when they are forcing their players to take a pay cut to keep the club running. I wonder what a player will think when he takes a pay cut for the good of the club and then sees Barcelona spend 65 million euros on a player and give him a huge salary?

The logical way would be to tighten his belt. Get rid of players with big salaries and bet on quality players from the academy or free and cheap players. Sure, it will be cruel, Barcelona might not even play for the title or the Champions League for two, three, four years. But they will recover from their current state and come back healthy and in style.

But what Joan Laporta is doing is just a road to ruin. She is trying to please Xavi at all costs and bring in big reinforcements. Already in the winter he has brought in Ferran Torres for 65 million euros, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Adama Traoré, plunging the club even further into debt. And all of this just for Barcelona to qualify for the Champions League and drop out in the quarter-finals of the Europa League.

Other big transfers

And now he’s in office again. He wants to bring in Lewandowski, whom Bayern won’t let go for less than 40-50 million euros, plus he will have to promise the player a huge salary. He is also negotiating for Morata or Moreno for the same amount, and is attracting Di Maria from PSG, Kessié from AC Milan and Alonso from Chelsea’s Azpilicueta as free agents.

And now the talk has started about another big name. Xavi is a big admirer of Bernardo Silva and Laporta wants to bring him in. But he’s stumbled, as Manchester City value their midfielder at €100 million. The logical thing to do would be to let it go and look for a cheaper option.

But Laporta wants to cash in on buying Bernard by selling Frenkie De Jong, who Manchester United are interested in. His price would be around €80 million, so the Culés would still have to pay another €20 million, which they simply don’t have at the moment.

Therefore, Laporte’s actions are absolutely incomprehensible. Even a layman can see at a glance that there is no room for big reinforcements at the moment, but the club must first get healthy, which can only be done by drastic measures. This is how the Catalans will get into a spiral where problems will only be postponed and it could end tragically.

Although Barcelona fans will not like to hear comparisons with Real Madrid, Laporta should take a cue from Florentino Pérez. Los Blancos were heavily in debt after the ‘Los Galacticos’ era and the experienced businessman made it his goal to pay off the club in the coming years. And he has succeeded, making the club one of the most financially stable in Europe.

Moreover, when he started building a new stadium and preparing for the future arrival of Kylian Mbappé, he tightened his belt a lot. 3 transfer seasons in a row (winter 2020, summer 2020, winter 2021) he hasn’t spent a euro and hasn’t brought in any players. Last summer he only bought Camavinga for €35m and Alaba came for free. However, there was room for that with the departure of big salaries of Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane.

Barcelona should approach the situation the same way. Not to buy players for huge sums, to bet on their great academy, supplemented by a few suitable free signings.

But if it keeps buying players it can’t even register, it could also end up very badly.

Source: Barcelona, Transfermarkt