Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has revealed the true extent of the club’s current precarious financial position.
As a consequence of the global COVID-19 pandemic, Barcelona have haemorrhaged money and many reports in the media have stated that this is complicating their plans for the upcoming transfer window, including their plans to sign Inter’s Lautaro Martinez.
Barcelona were initially unable to meet Lautaro Martinez’s €111 million release clause and were also unable to meet Inter’s demands of €90 million in cash plus one player. Reports have suggested that Barcelona could well finance a move for the Argentine by selling a lot of players.
“Even before the lockdown I said it was going to be a year of swap deals. We have already seen that there was a pandemic all over the world and that it would be a complex Summer with exchanges,” he explained as part of an interview with Spanish news outlet Mundo Deportivo.
He then went on to reveal the amount of money that the club have lost due to COVID-19 and some actions that they have been forced to undertake which has contributed to the losses the club have made.
“Since March 14, we have barely receieved nearly €1. We have lost €200 million in revenues. 200! We have recovered some money by reducing wages and with the ERTE. We had to close the shops and the museum and there were no ticket sales. We also gave money back to season ticket holders for the games that were not played.”
