Barcelona president Joan Laporta urges star players to accept further wage cuts when revealing scale of debt
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ByEurosport
Updated 16/08/2021 at 12:57 GMT
Barcelona president Joan Laporta called a press conference on Monday morning to outline the club's bleak financial situation and used the opportunity to attack the former president for the club's mounting economic problems. Laporta says Sergio Aguero can be registered as a Barca player provided further wage cuts are successfully made.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta
Image credit: Getty Images
Barcelona president Joan Laporta laid bare Barcelona's financial woes in a lengthy press conference on Monday and hit out at predecessor Josep Maria Bartmoeu's "lies" which have led to the club's economic troubles.
The La Liga club had been forced to let star player Lionel Messi go to Paris Saint-Germain, but still needs senior players to accept further wage cuts in order to fit with La Liga's financial restrictions, with the club's debt surpassing €1 billion euros.
Memphis Depay and Eric Garcia were only able to be registered for Barcelona's league opener against Real Sociedad on Sunday evening because Gerard Pique agreed to a significant wage reduction.
Sergio Busquets, Sergi Roberto and Jordi Alba are all expected to follow suit. Laporta praised the "admirable" actions of Pique.
"I thank Pique for his willingness to help the club. His reduction has helped us to register players," Laporta said.
We can register Kun [Sergio Aguero] with the agreement we plan to have with the other players. I hope the other captains act like Pique."
Laporta criticised Bartomeu numerous times when going through the club's "very worrying" and "dramatic" figures and revealed the club currently has a "negative net worth of €451m". He says Barca needs to be financially restructured.
"The salary policy that we stumbled upon from the previous board is wrong, it’s what the experts call the inverted pyramid, where veterans have long contracts and young players have short ones, and that makes it very difficult to renegotiate contracts," Laporta said.
"We also found that we had to carry out urgent repair works at the Camp Nou, if we didn’t, the people visiting the stadium would be at risk. The costs of this were €1.8m. Thanks to the speed with which we acted, this Sunday the public has been able to come.
"The previous board left the Camp Nou open when there were dangers. And they knew it."
Despite the club's problems, Laporta projects the club will be financially "healthy" in two years time.
"In a couple of years, the club’s economy will be healthy. We are not scared at all. We are highly motivated. It’s a big challenge but we are capable of overcoming it."
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