Former Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has publicly rejected his successor’s claims that he is responsible for the club’s current financial crisis.
In a recent interview, current president Joan Laporta stated that Bartomeu’s administration left the club in a state of “technical bankruptcy.” Laporta revealed the club’s debt had ballooned to a staggering €1.35 billion, forcing drastic measures to ensure its survival.
Bartomeu, who resigned in 2020, has now issued a firm rebuttal. “I am not responsible for the bankruptcy of FC Barcelona,” he declared. He argued that the club’s financial woes are a direct result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, which began in early 2020 and caused unprecedented revenue losses across football.
“The pandemic changed all the plans,” Bartomeu explained. “It caused a drastic drop in income for all clubs, including ours. The budgets for the 2019/20 and 2020/21 seasons were based on pre-pandemic projections that became impossible to meet.”
He pointed to the closure of Camp Nou and the loss of matchday, museum, and store revenue as primary factors. Bartomeu also emphasized that his board had approved a significant salary reduction agreement with the first-team players in 2020 to mitigate the financial impact.
The former president concluded by stating that the financial statements from his tenure were always approved by the club’s assembly and audited by Deloitte, insisting on the transparency of his management. This public denial sets the stage for a continued war of words over who bears the blame for Barcelona’s historic economic troubles.
