Javier Faus, our financial vice-President who once said referred to Messi as “this senyor” (this gentleman), and seriously thinks about running as FCB President in July, just gave an interview to Handelsblatt: http://www.handelsblatt.com/sport/fussball/fc-barcelona-vizepraesident-verhoehnt-die-bayern-ich-moechte-nicht-vom-konzern-kontrolliert-werden/11764170.html

Since he said some stuff that will make waves on the internet, let’s kill his lying quotes:

“It will be a challenge, but we’ll avoid that Messi, Neymar and Suarez leave. But if the a club has the potential to take them from us by using their checkbook, they would take them. We have to adapt ourselves to the new market cirumstances, to the kinds of PSG and Chelsea. We can keep quiet anymore. The players have a very short professional life and are within their rights to charge what other clubs can pay them. The fact that a different club offered them more money doesn’t allow us to say “please, stay for half the money”.

Lionel Messi isn’t going anywhere. He just renewed 1 year ago and his wage progression is the best there is in football: he will soon earn over 25mi euros/year, and we can afford it. Neymar just earned his raise, and Suarez literally just arrived, but will certainly deserve it next year.
Xavi Torres, one the best journalists in Spain and really close to the Messis, said one day before Bayern came to the Camp Nou that Messi STAYS. Torres has ample access to the Messis, followed his contract renewal closely and doesn’t write only to get hits. He’s a proper journalist, with proper access.
One could even argue Messi is building a even bigger mansion in Barcelona just had a tattoo with the window of the Sagrada Familia on his elbow, will have his second kid and already enrolled his older son on school, but the internet doesn’t care about such things.
Regardless, Messi stays. And I don’t see Suarez, and especially Neymar, leaving so soon.

So why would Faus, one of Bartomeu’s vice-Presidents, say such stupidity?
He wants to run as FCB President. By saying these things, he makes our club’s management seem weak. What other reason would he have to say such absurdity, a few days after we book our trip to Berlin, if it wasn’t to damage Bartomeu’s campaign?

Faus has his own agenda regarding the elections, and it doesn’t involve helping Bartomeu. That’s why he went to some random german newspaper to spill this nonsense. If this was supposed to be a warning from the board to the fans, Faus would have spoken on Catalan media.

So, do not worry. MSN isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, especially THIS summer, when we cannot sign any players.

“We are no longer the team that spends the most on wages, it’s now Chelsea and PSG. We have to understand that due to the fiscal differences, football players keep comparing their salary with those from the Premier League or the Bundesliga, which has raised the costs significantly. We’ve had to spend more to remain competitive. And yes: the players only leave due to money. Cesc and Alexis asked if they could leave to get more money on the EPL”

Does this even need much explaning? We still spend several million euros per year on wages. Messi’s new contract has a progression rate what will allow him to earn up to 25mi euros/year very shortly. Neymar has just earned his raise and Suarez was signed this season.
Regarding Cesc and Alexis: Faus is an imbecile. He knows absolutely nothing about football. Alexis was sold to make room for Suarez, not only on the team, but also because we needed the money to buy Luis. Cesc was sold the moment Luis Enrique was signed: Lucho knew very well about Cesc’s behavior, and was warned by Tata Martino about the “rotten apple”.

“If we compare the benefits, we are better than Bayern on the last few years. Besides, our brand is more valuable and according to Forbes we are ahead of Bayern. So, no, Bayern isn’t an example to us. We do not envy Bayern, we are a genuine miracle in the world of football”

I could finish his quote, but why botter? Our actual financial results are:

The one thing this board has always being proud about, is how they saved us from bankruptcy (a lie they fabricated), and managed the club so superbly well we were making money each year, wich huge gains (technically true, but also hides the fact that if it wasn’t for they Qatar deal, the club actually has been stagnated since 2010. The only thing they’ve added to our revenues was Qatar and nothing else).
So, imagine this board’s surprise, a few days after calling for elections, that the new Deloitte report showed the club has been stagnated at 485mi euros for 3 years, and returned to the position we were on 2007/08. Our distance to the richest clubs in Europe is growing, while PS/City/Chelsea are getting closer and closer to us.
When Laporta took over in 2003, we were 13th on the same ranking, with a revenue similer to Newcastle’s. In 6 years under Laporta’s rule, we overcame Manchester United and became the 2nd richest club on Earth and earned about the same Real Madrid did.
In global terms, the growth seen on the 20 clubs the form the economic elite has been of 14%, while FCB’s revenues have actually DECREASED 1% since 2011/12, a period in each the other 4 richest clubs have seen a growth of 40%!

The board’s excuse (they always have one), is that this has been happening due to our recent poor performances on the pitch. Which is utter nonsense.
We reached the second position in 2007/08 after winning no titles whatsoever, which shows that it doesn’t matter how we are doing on the pitch if there is an actual enomic plan in place, as Manchester United has showed. Even though they finished their last season in 7th and didn’t qualify for any European competition, they have kept growing.
They excuse was not good enough. We keep failing on all areas.

“We’ll pay our debts by 2025″

BULLSHIT. If you are planning on staying on managing our club (but you won’t), you must have forgotten the little 600mi euros stadium renovation your board want to shove down our throats:

After years of expectation and backdealings, the board got their golden prize: the socis approved the plan to renew the Camp Nou. This was Rosell’s & Co second big victory after the 12-13 La Liga title.
Jordi Moix led the campaign the club held throughout Catalunya, where the showed all the benefits of the new stadium, while travelling around and spending 3 million euros while doing it. Money from the club that the socis never authorized the board to use in such manner. And, curiously, the board only cared about travelling and making it easy so THEIR point of view would be noticed.
Manifest Blaugrana tried to hold a meeting at the Camp Nou so they could show the socis why they shouldn’t approve the new stadium, but the club forbade them for letting socis know about it as they were entering. Curious, huh?
“What the socis are worried about is how we are gonna pay for it”. Obviously, Bartomeu. Most of us are well aware how much the Camp Nou was originally gonna cost in 1957, and how much it ended up costing (basically the double). And we had to sell the best player on the world back then, Luis Suarez, to help the debt. Which didn’t really help, and we were in such a dire financial situation, we didn’t win a League title for 14 years.
600 million euros is gonna be the cost, according to Bartomeu.
420mi for the stadium itself, 30mi for Espai Barça, 90mi for the new Palau Blaugrana, 40mi for the new parking and 20mi for the urbanistic part. The way were are gonna pay, all according to the board who said Neymar’s price was 57mi (period), is: 200mi from the club’s own funds (which us hilarious, considering we are still paying our debt, the debt this board promised to clear before we reformed the Camp Nou); 200mi from selling the naming rights (which is obscene, considering the only reason our stadium is named after Joan Gamper is because the Franco Dictatorship wouldn’t allow it. Apart from being a historical error, the biggest stadium in Europe and one of the oldest ones will never actually be called by whatever Qatar brand this board wants to place there); and the last 200mi from a new loan with the banks (another joke. The board who arrived saying we didn’t even have money to pay for color copies and players’ wages will now take up multi-million euros loans to build a stadium we don’t actually need right now?).
Now, to the good part: their lies.
It rains very rarely in Barcelona. As in very, very rarely. Yet, the board is adamant we need a covered stadium, so we are as modern as other European ones. Which would be great, if it wasn’t so expensive. And useless.
“The new stadium will generate 30mi euros/year to the club!”, he promised. Didn’t explain how they came up with the exact number, and couldn’t guarantee to socis there isn’t going to be an increase on the yearly fees so we can actually pay for it all!
Oh, and 10.000 socis from the first tier will be moved to someplace else, because all the new VIP boxes and shops need space to make us money!
Companies like ISG, AEG, Icon Venue Group and Ryder Levett Bucknall are responsible for the project, and were all hired by Rosell.
The thing is: the board never explained to socis why these companies have earned the right to get this monumental construction work. The socis simply do not know enough about this project.
But, out of the 108.858 socis that could have voted, only 37.535 showed up (which is abysmal, considering over 81.000 people attended the Betis match on the Camp Nou on the same day).
The project was approved by 72,36% of those who voted. 27.161 socis chose to give the people who were slowly eating away at our best ever team a check to spend 600mi euros in a project they didn’t really explain. 9.589 socis, most of those informed by the efforts made in social media to enlighten the situation, voted No.
A few weeks after the club was being investigated for fiscal fraud on the Neymar signing, and a few days after FIFA had banned us from signing players for a whole year, this board was getting exactly what they wanted the most.

So let make it clear what happened on that date: over 27.000 socis gave  the go ahead to a project that wasn’t really a project of the reformed stadium just “mock ups”, which will cost 600mi euros, but they didn’t tell us exactly why they chose the companies that are charging this exact price. And we don’t know who they want as the naming rights owner, too. It’s simply too little info given about something so important, something that could make or break our club in a way we would need decades to recover from.

Jordi Moix cried of happiness that day. I hope none of us cry when it’s revealed who is behind  the naming rights and sweet construction contracts who will be signed.