A deal with the devil? Barcelona in need of selling its TV and BLM rights

Barcelona is drowning in a financial crisis and the management is looking for a way out. Therefore, together with its socios, it has decided to sell 25% of the TV rights and 49% of the BLM rights (merch). But this could also be a road to hell.

Barcelona’s socios (the beneficial owners) had a meeting on Thursday night to discuss the sale of the club’s assets. A total of 4478 socios were invited, of which 636 arrived in person. The rest had to vote electronically.

“Thank you to all those who are here and those who are connected. The assembly is to decide on important issues concerning the future and present of the club. It is to approve, if it sees fit, solutions that would help improve the club’s management and thus bring the institutional and sporting situation back to normal,” welcomed all those present, club president Joan Laporta.

“Tomorrow it will be one year and three months since we took over the club. We have come across a very delicate situation, in May we were unable to pay salaries and the investors were asking for 200 million, which we did not have. Today, we would say that Barcelona is a Formula 1 company that we took over without petrol and with a seized engine.In any company, there would have been a liquidation of the company or a cash injection by the socios, and we did not want that. We set to work to change that,” Laporta continued.

“If we can activate the financial levers, we will have our own funds again, we will be able to pay off the debt in a reasonable way and invest to make the teams more competitive. We will apply the rules of financial stability. If you allow us to activate the financial levers, we will be able to send the car to the pits to prepare it and put it on the grid to fight for the victory,” the club president added.

Selling the rights

And what exactly is the deal? Barcelona will sell 49% of its BLM (merch) rights and 25% of its TV rights for 25 years in advance. They will spend around 800 million euros.

On the one hand, a super sum and a possible solution for the Culés to buy players and strengthen their squad. But there is a catch.

Firstly, it could quickly become a deal with the devil. If Barcelona don’t spend the money to pay off their debts, but ‘blow it’ on the transfer market and on player salaries, it will be a huge problem in the future.

Culés will lose half of the profits from merchandise and a quarter of the profits from TV rights for 25 years, which will be sorely missed in the budget for the next years.

If Laporta does not pay off all the debts from the amount received, very soon the club will not belong to the Socios. That is the prerogative of the three Spanish clubs, Barcelona, Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao.

All clubs are owned by members who have a stake. They are not owned by one rich owner, but by the aforementioned socios. All three clubs are duly proud of their ownership structure and have no intention of giving it up.

“We are doing everything we can to ensure that Barcelona is always owned by the socios. As long as I am president, this will not change. We are working with the idea that the club’s assets are safe in the hands of the socios,” Laporta assured the fans.

So now it’s his turn. He must dispose of the money properly and, above all, pay off the club’s debts. But Laporta seems to be thinking more about the club’s current success on the pitch.

“We came here to make Barcelona strong and win trophies again, to bring back the joy of barcelonismo. We are asking the socios to help us compete on equal terms with our rivals. Not all the money in the world, but all the pressure from those who don’t want us to be a reference point in the world again, will not prevent the club from getting back to the top,” Laporta said.

Source: FC Barcelona, Marca