Police raided FC Barcelona headquarters on Monday, seizing evidence and arresting four people. The arrests, on the eve of the club’s presidential election, created another crisis for a football giant, shaken by overwhelming debts, internal fights on the board and poor performance on the field.
A spokeswoman for Mossos d’Esquadra, Catalonia’s regional police force, said her economic crimes unit had seized evidence at Barcelona offices. She added that the investigation is continuing and that four people have been detained, but, citing police policy, refused to reveal the names of the individuals.
Various media outlets reported that the four detainees were current and prominent former executives of the club: ex-president Josep Maria Bartomeu, who resigned in December, shortly before facing a vote of censure; Oscar Grau, the club’s chief executive; Roman Gomez Ponti, his head of legal services; and Jaume Masferrer, Bartomeu’s adviser.
Barcelona said in a statement that the club offered “full collaboration with legal and police authorities to help clarify facts that are subject to investigation”.
Investigators have been investigating the affairs of Barcelona for months, after incendiary revelations suggested that the club had secretly hired an outside marketing company to produce derogatory content about some of its most important and high-profile players, including Lionel Messi and Gerard Piqué.
The team denied any wrongdoing and hired a consultant, PWC, to complete an audit of its relationship with the marketing firm, I3 Ventures, but the police continued the investigation.
The police investigation in Barcelona was closely monitored by the Spanish media, which called the case “Barcagate”. Bartomeu said in February that he had no idea that the company was involved in spreading negative content against Barcelona players and, although the club terminated the contract, the stain remained.
The invasion of the club’s offices comes just days before more than 140,000 Barcelona members elect Bartomeu’s successor, and it is yet another blow to the reputation of a club that for years has portrayed itself as a benchmark in world football. The team liked to present itself as a team with values that put it in its own class, operating under the motto “More than a club”.
Bartomeu’s resignation came months after a humiliating 8-2 defeat by Bayern Munich, which eliminated last season’s Champions League club, Europe’s richest football competition, and a public disagreement with Messi, arguably the greatest player in the history of football.
Messi described Bartomeu’s board as “a disaster” and demanded permission to leave the club he joined at age 13 in Argentina. The club refused Messi’s request and the player stepped back and announced that he would stay instead of dragging the issue to court.
Messi’s contract allows him to leave at the end of this season, but he said he has not yet decided what he will do.
Bartomeu has been struggling with negative headlines for over a year, and his tenure as president, started amid a previous scandal in 2014, was marked by periods of turmoil. Last spring, six members of the club’s board resigned and publicly voiced their criticisms of Bartomeu.
At the center of their disagreement was the contract with I3 Ventures, and the allegations that it was behind fake social media accounts – claiming to be Barcelona fans – that attacked those seen as opponents of Bartomeu. Among them were Victor Font, a candidate declared to be the club’s next president, and popular players like Messi and Piqué.
The team’s finances are also more precarious than at any time in its recent history. Earlier this year, she published financial statements showing that she owed more than 1 billion euros, about $ 1.2 billion, to her creditors, tax authorities and rival clubs, with more than 600 million euros to be paid in the short term. deadline.
The club has entered into emergency negotiations with banks to find a solution to its problems, and club officials are also considering selling some of the team’s commercial assets to investors to raise up to $ 250 million.
The club played without spectators this season because of the coronavirus pandemic, as is the case with most teams in Europe, and the team’s revenue forecasts have failed. The club’s cavernous Nou Camp stadium and museum are usually two of the most visited tourist spots in Spain, and the loss of these revenues and other revenues could reach 600 million euros, club executives recently told The Times.
In the field, the image is hardly better.
Even with Messi’s return, the club’s performance has been a shadow of its dominant past. Barcelona suffered another humiliation in the Champions League last month, losing 4-1 to Paris St.-Germain in the first leg of their two-game match for the round of 16. The defeat means that the elimination of this year’s tournament is practically guaranteed.
Barcelona recovered from a bad start to reach second place in the Spanish league table, but are still five points behind leaders Atlético Madrid, whose success was partly attributed to the goals of striker Luis Suarez, whose contract was canceled by Barcelona before the beginning of the season.