Head of Mediapro Jaume Roures has taken a shot at the Madrid-based press for their criticism of his investment in Barcelona.
Roures, who is also the owner of Orpheus Media, was behind their purchase of 24.5% of Barca Vision, the subsidiary company dealing with audiovisual rights for Barcelona. One of their ‘economic levers’, it helped Barcelona to be able to spend money two summers ago and refresh their squad.
It’s been the subject of no shortage of criticism from the Spanish capital, and Roures has not escaped the blowback too. It has not been lost that Roures is in charge of some of the La Liga broadcast rights, at the same time as investing in Barcelona.
However speaking on Catalunya Radio (via Marca), Roures reminded fans that his company MediaPro had invested in Real Madrid too in the past.
“Evidently, the club where Laporta is now, as was the case with other presidents before, have received our collaboration, because part of our job is to ensure that there is as much stability as possible in football.”
“We have also invested in economic levers for around 6 billion pesetas with Florentino Perez in 2000, even if the Madrid press don’t remember it. I’m not sure whether it is the same amount, but it sounds similar.”
The value of 6 billion pesetas at the time is equivalent to between €50-70m currently. Orpheus Media’s investment in Barcelona was originally to the tune of €100m, but having reduced their share to just 10%, their total investment will now lie at €40m.
The operation he refers to is similar in purpose, if not quite the same. Real Madrid did not sell their audiovisual rights outright, but did lease out their production to Mediapro, rather than exploiting them through their own company. The result being that Mediapro ran Real Madrid TV for several years until around 2006.
In comparison, Orpheus Media are in line for 10% of the profits from Barca Vision, and could see some of the money if and when the company is floated on the NASDAQ stock exchange, with current valuations sitting at around €1b.
