Barcelona presidential candidate: Members have been excluded from the club and become pure consumers

Recently, Barcelona presidential candidate Marc Siriya accepted an interview with "Daily Sports". He analyzed the club's economic and social situation, criticized the management model of the current board of directors, and elaborated on his vision to protect the legacy and strengthen the structure of Barcelona.

A remote membership meeting will be held on October 19. He believes that this format is meaningless because members are not allowed to debate in the club's highest body. This is undemocratic. This decision was made during the epidemic.

Silia believes that members have been excluded from the club for a long time. Social areas, fan associations, cheering groups, etc. have all clearly deviated from the role of members and turned them into pure consumer roles. Members have relinquished their power as shareholders to defend the club's interests, create debate and oversee the board. It was clear that someone did not want members to attend the conference in person.

Despite an increase in revenue (such as Nike sponsorship, more VIP boxes and significant improvements at BLM), the club's operating results still showed a loss of 71 million euros. In addition, the cumulative losses during this term have reached 230 million euros. For the second year running, the club restated its approved financial results, with an undisclosed loss of €89m last year taking losses in 2023/24 to -€180m from -€91m.

Although it earned more than 900 million euros in revenue from the sale of future assets and rights, the actual accumulated losses have reached 140 million euros. These 850 million euros in revenue can no longer be recovered, which means that the actual loss during this term has reached 1 billion euros.

The return of the Camp Nou Stadium alone cannot solve these problems. It is expected that the financing of the Camp Nou Stadium will reach 1.45 billion euros by 2032. By then, if Laporta is re-elected, we will still have no principal repayment. During this period, we had to pay interest of 750 million euros, which were debt refinancing caused by the failure to complete the stadium renovation on time and generate revenue.

To get out of this situation, we need to significantly increase revenues from the digital sector and BLM to a level of 1.4 to 1.5 billion euros per year. Therefore, protecting BLM is crucial. Siriya denied that his initiative was for electioneering purposes. He said the most important thing at the moment was protecting the club's legacy rather than thinking about elections.

If the sale of BLM can be successfully prevented, it will protect the club. He also mentioned that according to Article 67 of the club's charter, the board of directors must provide guarantees if there are losses for two consecutive years, but this clause is currently dormant.

Siriya believes that the 2003 generation is outdated and the club needs a new governance model. The current management model borders on nepotism and concealment of strategic issues. For example, the buyer information of VIP seats was only made public through reporters.

Regarding whether Laporta will run for office, Siria said that the opposition has failed to take practical action for many years. He hopes to achieve real change by blocking the BLM sale. If the board has no intention of selling BLM, it should be put directly on the agenda. If there are enough signatures, the topic should be included even if only 500 to 600 members attend the convention.

As for the construction of the new Camp Nou stadium, Siriya believes that the fault lies in the choice of contractors. The board chose cost and time priority, which ultimately resulted in both time and cost delays. The initial budget was 960 million euros, but due to delays, the total cost could reach 1.1 to 1.2 billion euros.