Barcelona sold off significant amounts of their assets in order to facilitate a squad rebuild last summer, but one of those assets is proving particularly troublesome.
The sale of 25% of their TV rights to Sixth Street for €467m went off without a hitch, but the €200m sale of 49.5% of Barca Vision has not gone exactly to plan. The Blaugrana resold 29.5% of the subsidiary to Libero and Nipa this summer as Orpheus Media and Socios had not paid the €60m they were due this summer, although that is debated by Orpheus Media boss Jaume Roures. Libero and Nipa came up with an initial €20m payment, but have yet to pay the rest of the amount, leaving Barcelona and Laporta in something of a hole.
Faced with the prospect of not being able to register Joao Cancelo and Joao Felix at the end of the transfer window, Laporta and treasurer Ferran Olive put up a bank guarantee of €12m, providing their own assets as liability if the payments from Libero were not made.
However with the German firm having already missed one deadline, the 13th of October marks a second, with little sign of the money. According to Marca, Laporta is desperately searching for a fifth investor in the company in order to secure the expected money. The Blaugrana no longer have faith that Libero will pay up and are again on the hunt for investment.
This will likely harm Barcelona in the transfer market, more than it already has. Deco is due to travel to Brazil on Monday, where he will speak with future striker Vitor Roque and explain their situation as to whether they can sign him in January or not – this is likely to depend on whether they bring in the expected money.
Part of the risk of Barcelona’s situation is that they may have to do business with less reliable companies.
