What should Barca do next?

Winning record for someone that blew a 4-0 lead twice

I'll grant you he worked magic in the league and was unfairly let go at the wrong time, thoughtlessly and with a wrong replacement. But he's the definition of complacency.

Valverdes losses against Roma and Liverpool are as embarrasing if not more than Bayern.

this barca state of things reminds me of our milan in 2008 when we got beat by Arsenal 2-0 in home game on the death by fabregas thunderbolt, and everyone from tv, journalists, fans, rival fans warning milan warning the club for the signs of things to come  with too many veterans, legends nonetheless but coming into their end of career and that milan should move on, even if its painful.

but we didnt listen galliani and berlusconi didnt listen....  our club has never been the same since then, its a reminiscence - the transition that barcelona right now they are seeing is needed, failures, painful defeats

did anyone ever think they would live to see the day when Barca's front three was;

Depay De Jong Braithwaite???

utter madness

don't think they'll regain their status as a powerhouse in the CL for at least a decade

They got caught out by covid worse than anyone out of the top clubs. Now they're scraping to make ends meet. It's damage limitation for them the next couple of years and we'll see how they rebuild.

Art Morte wrote:They got caught out by covid worse than anyone out of the top clubs. Now they're scraping to make ends meet. It's damage limitation for them the next couple of years and we'll see how they rebuild.

What the previous president and board did was criminal. The covid impact on top of it. It will take at least 3 years for them to recover. But actually letting go of Messi and lending away previous poor performing and expensive purchases all are helping.

Meanwhile the main thing is for Koeman to get the most out of current squad. It isn’t anywhere close to what it was, but on the other hand they aren’t pub players either.

But I see many of previous diehard GL Barca fans fleeing to PsG or other teams. Reminds me of Huntsman, who just follows one coach and regularly jumps team to team. It seems the loyal fan that stays with one team for a lifetime is becoming a rarity.

What should barca do next: Relieve of wages and other expenses as much as possible and go all out for Haaland next summer.

Another step is to put faith in La Masia again and pray for the best

Firenze wrote:did anyone ever think they would live to see the day when Barca's front three was;

Depay De Jong Braithwaite???

utter madness

don't think they'll regain their status as a powerhouse in the CL for at least a decade

I started off seeing Barcelona as a very young boy with the like of Stoichkov, Ronaldo, Giovanni & Figo.

In 2021, seeing them line up with Braithwaite, De Jong and Depay is beautiful stuff as a Madrid fan. Just beautiful.

Firenze wrote:did anyone ever think they would live to see the day when Barca's front three was;

Depay De Jong Braithwaite???

utter madness

don't think they'll regain their status as a powerhouse in the CL for at least a decade

I'm actually lost for words

Luuk De Jong? One of the worst flops in Bundesliga of recent times..

Said it for a while, but have not been more right to say then to today - I'd be happy just to make top 4 n get into the CL, and not get humiliated that often in games this season Definitely gonna take a long time for us to recover.

One of the lowest points in our history atm, having Betis level players being a regular thing. Just wait to see those late game long balls when we are behind into the box hoping De Jong n Pique can make something out of them lol...

Rebuilding with the purchase of Haaland next summer? It's not like we have just one problem to solve

next few years would be as a good time as ever to get Barca in the Europa league and get revenge for all those late 00s to early 10s CL hurt and demolitions

Barca's situation is tragic but not as bad as Arsenal, sorry We can still attract a player like Haaland etc. Our attack currently, assuming everyone is fit, is not half bad. I'm actually quite content with Ansu/Aguero/Depay/Dembele/Demir considering our dire financial state. I'm actually excited for this season regardless of everything

I remember folks making fun of Arsenal every season for finishing 4th, now folks are feeling bad that they're fighting relegation.

You can barely attract Luuk de Jong, pipe down on that shit please

My days, you have a starting line of Braithwaite-De Jong-Depay, the club is DEFUNCT

In fact, i would go so far as to say that we would whoop your ass in CL if we ever meet.

WATTBA when the fanbase is in a state of disarray over losing Ilaix Moriba because you can't pay him a similar salary to that of other graduates , all the while Koeman goes and claims no one his age should be focused on money, meanwhile he is hooking up his weed-snorting buddies on £500k p/w contracts.

Your club is done mate, you cant even afford the commission to Raiola let alone Haaland. You're the next Valencia, except you have a world-class talent churning academy with esteemed players such as Bojan, Afellay, Cuenca, Samper etc

Can't believe Barca fans still rate La Masia because of one generation of players, its like United fans rating Tuanzebe or Cleverly because of class of 92, 30 years ago

Get used to it buddy, long overdue dark days are coming

you don't snort weed, @Kaladin

Kaladin's schadenfreude
Barca can still turn this around. Need a year with normal finances, then the pandemic to end, and barca should have a lot more flexibility to actually build a project. We'll see what happens but the Milan path is not guaranteed yet

no barca wont see milan path financially they have better infrastructure in place - as long as they can go past pandemic and safely bring in audiences
they got in-house merchandising, museums, own stadium, la masia all those infrastructure.
to repay back loans, and see some healthy fiscal numbers probably will take another 2-3 years unless they have more toxic financial mismanagements that is not yet disclosed

i dont think refinancing their loans would be big issue either as long as barca shows that they have made drastic cuts and has no significant issues with cash flows either.

but my god what a reckless way to be in the position like this ... it makes milan situation much less worse

ES is clueless. Man thinks we'll end up like Milan. You have 1/10 of the potential, infrastructure and resources to build up compared to barca. There's really no comparison

I barely even cared to respond, seeing how obsessive you are over Robes & Inter etc.

To me, the issues with Barca are institutional, not just leadership. If the proper checks and balances were in place, this type of thing should never happen.

So if I were looking to solve the problems, dealing with the symptoms (i.e. debt, no cash, etc.) is just short-term to survive. The club really needs to dig into the processes that allowed them to get into this predicament and fix those.

I'm also surprised more people haven't gotten fired frankly, starting with the entire accounting department, the auditors, etc.

i feel quite the opposite, that the departments and leadership below the board definitely rang the sirens but the board members seems to be convinced that their year to year record earnings would pose no problems and can weather any economic problems.

as soon as pandemic happened and that lead to immediate stop in cash flow in the club and everyone then panicked.

would be a nice thesis topic for performing a phd in the coming years.

Naw, the institutional issues were there long before Covid. Remember all the shady deals with agents, fathers, tax avoidance schemes! It is true that they were led to believe that income would keep going up and they could buy anyone. But they were missing several key points;

1. It is best not to raid other teams, much better to maintain solid business relationships to other teams. Make smart deals through negotiations, not just with cash.

2. It used to be when you signed the “superstars”, you would expect to make up the purchase price through shirt sales(image rights), let alone what they might offer on the field. That whole concept has been thrown out, not only at Barca.

3. You can’t run a successful business when your costs take up most of your income. This salary load (which is the true costs of salaries to the club i.e.counting the taxes paid by club) can’t be over 75% of income. It’s the salaries that IMO will be the most difficult issue to resolve in today’s futbol. The move of PSG owners to supplement operating income with bank guarantees, might be enough to beat the current rules, but it is not sustainable.

futbol_bill wrote:Naw, the institutional issues were there long before Covid. Remember all the shady deals with agents, fathers, tax avoidance schemes! It is true that they were led to believe that income would keep going up and they could buy anyone. But they were missing several key points;

1. It is best not to raid other teams, much better to maintain solid business relationships to other teams. Make smart deals through negotiations, not just with cash.

2. It used to be when you signed the “superstars”, you would expect to make up the purchase price through shirt sales(image rights), let alone what they might offer on the field. That whole concept has been thrown out, not only at Barca.

3. You can’t run a successful business when your costs take up most of your income. This salary load (which is the true costs of salaries to the club i.e.counting the taxes paid by club) can’t be over 75% of income. It’s the salaries that IMO will be the most difficult issue to resolve in today’s futbol. The move of PSG owners to supplement operating income with bank guarantees, might be enough to beat the current rules, but it is not sustainable.

excellent points ... i completely ignored the dark side of the football business XD
its true what u said above... who knows how much earnings not being disclosed is what barca ended up loosing ... i assume more than media speculation.

ur right there is no way any business can be successful when cost takes more than income.

Superstars were never meant to pay themselves back with shirt sales that's a spin that Florentino used to get the public on board with cristiano's (at the time) ridiculous fee , and it never turned out to be true. Clubs get a very small percentage of shirt sale income.

Not with Madrid! Have you seen any statistics what PSG is getting for Messi? It may not be the case with all players and not all clubs insist on image rights, but you are clearly wrong in the case of Madrid. Beckham, Zidane and Figo are other examples of big additional income to the club.

I'm not saying they're not additional income, and certainly big stars help the club in a number of ways, just that this is wrong: "you would expect to make up the purchase price through shirt sales".