The new Camp Nou, the perfect storm

Josep Maria Bartomeu not find eighteen million euros to bring Agudo Nolito in January, as it was the wish of first team coach, but says he will find six hundred to redraw comprehensively all club facilities. Last Wednesday the president guaranteed that "the new stadium will not jeopardize the sports project". However, there was also guaranteed that it would submit two proposals shirt sponsorship for the club in the Assembly last October and did not bring even a partner to the elector.

"I'm worried zero" Luis Enrique Martinez said today when asked about the possible impact in the short and medium term that can have such a work, whose investment equals total revenue for the club for a whole year. In the same line as the president, the coach said that "this project will have no effect on the playing field" and only regretted "having to wait so long before seeing it completed" in 2022, according to markings between the club and studies plan Nikken Sekkei architecture and Pascual-Ausió.

A boat soon, the dance numbers has already begun. Initially the new Camp Nou was budgeted at 420 million euros, serving as the jewel in the crown called Espai Barça, which will also include a new Palau Blaugrana and the Campus, with catering and hospitality, a project that in total amounted to 600 million. However, the budget of the new stadium has mysteriously reduced to 360 million.

It is not unreasonable to think that the lack of sponsor, and the freezing of negotiations with the supplier of sports equipment, may have had a direct impact in the form of some slowdown in reducing debt, and may complicate life the first team in the financial chapter, limiting the capacity and robustness pay when paid clauses of new players, and these circumstances, in turn, end up having a negative impact on results. Normal powerpoints that are increasingly austere, if you can use this buzzword when these astronomical figures are discussed.

Naturally it is a situation that nobody wants but hanging in the air like the goal at the Santiago Bernabeu match against Borussia Dortmund almost twenty years ago. That is, the future hangs by a thread, virtually, and can fall apart at the slightest. The only financial plan there is to sell the name of the stadium 200 million, without specifying for how many years, take a credit of 200 and put 200 out of pocket. In other words, Bartomeu already has 200 million and faces not yet have an increase of 400 million in debt, which would be multiplied by two. All this if there is no additional cost of any kind, which is also seen.

Given that the salary cap imposed by the FIFA prevents the club making transfers unless the budget is extended or financial margin designed to chips of the players is reduced, it is feared what might happen if Barcelona still can not find sponsor, unrenovated one of its stars and embarking on a huge project without having tied an admittedly optimistic in their forecasts financing. The foregoing, however, do not make me optimistic about the storm that you can find the Catalan club if something does not go well. And the president 's words are not especially reassuring.