Sandro Rosell and the current board of directors have caused an incalculable damage to Futbol Club Barcelona, that is what many worried fans claim after a trophyless season and a long period of institutional instability. In this special series, you will find a well crafted timeline of the events that led our club to the current troubled times the club is going through.

Let us continue with details on the Neymar operation and empty conspiracy theories.

March 1st, 2013 - The Ultras are back

Joan Laporta was the first President in Spanish football’s history with the courage to fight the ultras. The extreme fans. Barcelona's President at the time, he was attacked and threatened, but still managed to keep extremists away from the Camp Nou.

Sandro Rosell and the Barcelona board had other plans.

The first step was selling tickets to the ultras with lowered prices, and they were given plane tickets to attend away Champions League matches. It was speculated the tickets were strategically sold cheap by batches without knowing who were the people who were receiving them.

After some fights in one of the sections of the Camp Nou where these individuals normally support the team, and especially after a flare was thrown on the pitch in a match against Real Madrid, the Police investigated and opened a disciplinary action against the club, revealing that Barcelona allowed the ultras to enter the stadium. Some of the members of such groups of supporters are literally inmates, who leave their prison cells during weekends and visit the Camp Nou for the lower prices.

They are still going to Barcelona matches. At the end of the 2013/14 season, some of them confronted Messi’s brother and father after the league was lost at home to Atlético Madrid, and months later were investigated under accusations of stabbing two PSG fans on the outskirts of the Camp Nou.

On March 7th, 2013, Catalunya Radio published a document which revealed Sandro Rosell signed on May 16th, 2010, when he was yet to start campaigning for the Presidency, with several ultra groups, promising them a special supporters section inside the Camp Nou. The former Barcelona president was asked about such document and denied its existence.

The document has the signature of Sandro Rosell and Josep Lluís Sureda, leader of the Boixos Nois for years. Sureda was part of far-right groups like Estat Catalá and had connections with Nazi groups. In total, there were signatures from 10 groups: Tóxicos, ICS, Taliban Barça, Grup Fidel, Nostra Ensenya, Unibarçataris, Almogavers and Supporters Puyol.

The document left the door open to similar groups, as well as “other club members to cheer in a model manner”.

There were only 11 copies of said document: one for Rosell and for each group’s leader. It contains 6 pages with the logo of Rosell’s campaign and with the conditions to form the future “Grada d’Animació”. The majority of the Rosell's board members were not aware of this document, which proves he lied not only lie to the members, but also to his own board.

It was a questionable action, but votes were more important for the upcoming elections, so it didn’t matter if he got them from extremists or if he was allowing such people to return to our stadium, historically a place where families visit together.

June 1st, 2013 - Abidal, our soul, had being lied to and left the club

As seen before, Bartomeu guaranteed he would stay. And he lied. Lied to the fans, and to the Frenchman.

On December 20th, culés were thrilled and happy to see a model player like him, superb as a left back and centre back, was going to help us for one more season after winning all his battles against the horrible disease that is cancer.

Bartomeu had lied. Abidal did play his first match for Barcelona after his return on April 6th, but wasn’t renewed automatically. He wasn't renewed at all. Many excuses were made, including “the medical department doesn't think he will be able to continue featuring as top level player”.

Éric Abidal left the club in tears after an horrible press conference that highlighted everything that is wrong with the club. Monaco brought him back Ligue 1 on a free transfer and he went to Monaco to play over 30 matches, qualified for the Champions League and even got a call up to the France National Team after good displays.

One of the biggest examples of superation was gone because of money, his renewal would increase his wages and the board didn't consider it worth it from a financial standpoint. The man that inspired millions with his fight against cancer, which supporters and players loved and admired, who made a miraculous recovery and lifted our fourth Champions League trophy didn't matter to the board because of an exaggerated issue with money.

June 3rd, 2013 - Neymar signs with Barcelona

It's important to highlight that pointing out the irregularities and mistakes made by the board on Neymar's signing doesn't mean anyone is against the player himself or his family. This is about the lies (and possible crimes) Sandro Rosell and his board did in the operation to sign the player.

After paying €10 million for Neymar in 2011, FC Barcelona finally brought Neymar and Sandro Rosell finally had what would become Nike’s main star on his team, but that only happened with certain “financial engineering”:

The pre-contract signed in 2011 with the player didn't breach FIFA rules because Santos had authorised it, revealing that Barcelona paid €10 million to N&N, Neymar’s company, who was run by his father for a preference on his signing after the 2014 World Cup. So far so good, the club paid a reasonable sum to guarantee they would bring the biggest young star in the world in the coming years.

The contract had a clause stating if Barcelona didn’t sign Neymar in 2014 they would have to pay €40 million, or if Neymar signed with other club, the player would have to pay €40 million. The issue lies with this clause, the club signed Neymar a year before the World Cup and had to pay another €30 million to Neymar's company.

Combined with the fee paid before to the player, Barcelona paid €40 million to player, and €17 million to Santos, total: €57 million. At the time, it was considered a bargain.

July 8th, 2013 - Atlético Madrid was gifted with Spain's All Time Topscorer

David Villa suffered a serious injury during the Club World Cup in 2011, losing most matches, and failed to make an impact in the 2012/13 season. Far from the player he was before the injury, but Barcelona still refused a €15 million offer from Arsenal in January.

Less than six months later, Villa was sold to Atlético Madrid for €2 million, and it was leaked to the media that if he stayed another season his salary would skyrocket to €13 million in his final year of the season, something unproven until today.

Atlético Madrid in exchange for David Villa, gave Barcelona the first options on the young right back Javier Manquillo, currently loaned at Liverpool, and Saúl Níguez, currently at Atlético Madrid. The first option on both players were never mentioned again.

Simeone and his men went to win La Liga in the final round at the Camp Nou with David Villa on their ranks after he was supposedly sold to save money.

July 14th, 2013 - Thiago Alcântara was sold to pay Neymar

Thiago was pushed of the club for the lowest price he could contractually be sold to enable the signing of Neymar, the spaniard wasn't a traitor by leaving to Bayern Munich to join Guardiola.

He had a clause on his contract that stated if he didn't play a certain amount of minutes per season, his €90 million clause would decrease to €18 million. Strangely, in the final months of the season Thiago started to play less, something that corroborates he was meant to be sold from the start. He left for €20 million, plus a million earned in a friendly with Bayern Munich and €4m of his salary that Thiago waived to leave to Bavaria.

Injuries aside, Thiago had everything to become Xavi's heir, but the priority was money once again, a necessity to bring Neymar, showing once again lack of planning and disregard to La Masia.

August 28th, 2013 - Qatar Foundation becomes Qatar Airways

In December 2010, Sandro Rosell signed with Qatar Foundation and informed Barcelona members it was out of necessity and they were a respectable philanthropic institution. The contract wasn't signed with Qatar Foundation only, but with Qatar Sports Investment (QSI), stating that Barcelona could approve a possible change of sponsorship brand in case QSI asked for it. The club accepted the change and the shirt sponsorship became Qatar Airways.

From that moment onwards, the Camp Nou became full of Qatar Airways advertising, even on the seats, and the players were involved into televised promotions. Such change would normally warrant an increase in the sponsorship income, but the same compensation was kept as Qatar started using Barcelona's historic stadium and world class players (and brands) to promote them.

There might be more clauses hidden inside the contract signed by Sandro Rosell as Johan Cruyff warned the club years ago.

October 2nd, 2013 - MCM sues Futbol Club Barcelona for €100 million

MCM is a company hired to place a second skin with LEDs around the new La Masia, allowing them to use them to exploit the building commercially with ad placements. The contract was originally signed by Joan Laporta, but Sandro Rosell and the Barcelona board signed a new one, and failed to fulfil it.

On MCM’s lawsuit for the breach of contract, it’s made clear the contract was drawn up and signed by Sandro Rosell himself with new clauses that substitute and cancel the previous agreement signed by Laporta. Confirming the control over the management of exploring La Masia’s walls goes to MCM, with the profits shared between both parties.

It’s important to highlight that MCM is a small company willing to put millions of euros to proceed with this lawsuit considering the size of Barcelona and the money the club can spend with lawyers. The company are confident they will, in the worst case, reach an agreement. They're asking for €100 million in reparations for what they have lost for the breach of contract.

It’s baffling to know that the club doesn't allow MCM to start exploring the La Masia building when they know they are entitled to 50% of a business that is gonna generate millions of euros to the club. It gets even worse when there’s little to no press coverage regarding this matter while no big law firms in Barcelona are defending the club in such perilous lawsuit.

The board has reserved only one million euros to deal with this lawsuit, odd considering that MCM is asking a hundred times more. Either the club reaches an agreement or lose the case, could cost millions.

The verdict will be out on April 9th, 2015, the Judge will decide.

October 15th, 2013 - A generation of children who won’t go to the Camp Nou

Since 1957, when the Camp Nou was built, members could attend matches with their children. Back then, it was a long wooden bench painted in green, so logically there weren’t seats, just numbers marked on the wood. The members would get closer to each other to enjoy matches with their families. Later on, when the seats were put in place and the wooden benches were gone, it still worked. If no members were near you, you could place your kid next to you and watch the match. And if there weren’t any free seats, you could put your kid on your lap and enjoy the match. That has never been a problem.

It worked without incidents for decades.

When Rosell became President in 2010, one of his promises was to fight for earlier matches, so more kids could attend since Rosell himself used to go to the Camp Nou with his father and sit on his lap. But he never did that. In fact, he was gonna add insult to injury.

One week before the Clásico, and no previous warning whatsoever, Barcelona was now barring the members' kids under 8 years old to enter the Camp Nou without tickets, something that has been always been the case. Once again, Sandro Rosell and his board were thinking about money, instead of our club’s values and traditions. Sandro would go on to say: “I don’t want ever hear that Sandro Rosell was responsible for the death of a child”. Something that never happened before at the Camp Nou. As it was decided a week before the Clásico, the aim was to sell even more tickets seemed clear.

The kids that were attending the matches were registered members. Each of them had their own ID with their parents paying for it. Why the board failed to inform the members of this change with some time to spare, so the parents could decide if it was still worth it to keep paying for their children’s membership? Zero concern about the members and their money, yet again.

Now that Rosell is gone, and with elections coming up, Bartomeu not only brought the kids back to the Camp Nou, but now every member below fourteen years old doesn't need tickets to attend matches. Security concerns? Irrelevant again.

December 9th, 2013 - The Neymar Case begins and Rosell flees

The €40 million paid Neymar’s company weren't forgotten by the members and some of them sought their rights to be informed of the contract details so they could see what the club had done when they signed Neymar. The club failed to comply, and one of the members, Jordi Cases, decided to sue the club for embezzlement with Sandro Rosell named as responsible. It was the beginning of the end.

On December 16th, the Judge demanded the club to deliver all the contracts from the Neymar operation to analyze it and decide to accept the lawsuit or not. The Spanish Fiscal Authorities followed suit and asked for Barcelona's financial statements between 2012 and 2013.

Sandro Rosell held a press conference on January 20th, 2014 and decided to “ask the Judge to summon him, to show how transparent he is and that he accepts Case’s lawsuit to explain everything without breaching the confidentiality clause on Neymar’s contracts”. Two days later, he was summoned. Audiencia Nacional accepted the lawsuit and the fiscal authorities were also going to pursue it.

One day later, on January 23rd, 2014, Sandro Rosell became the first runaway President in the history of Futbol Club Barcelona. One day after confirming the lawsuit would continue, Rosell was leaving the Presidency “due to an attack made against me and my family”. He claimed someone fired a BB gun towards his home. An attack that conveniently happened during the three days between Rosell asking for the Judge to move forward with the lawsuit and the Judge actually doing it.

The man responsible for all you have read so far was gone. Our next President was now Bartomeu, one of his close friends, and one of the Presidents in Barcelona’s history that no one had voted for that would, in theory, stay in charge for another season.

January 24th, 2014 - Bartomeu reveals Neymar’s cost was €86 million

When Sandro Rosell was questioned about Neymar’s cost, he said, emphatically, it had been “€57 million, period”. And when the members, like Jordi Cases, asked to see the contracts, he claimed “there were confidentiality clauses that can’t be breached”.

One day after Rosell left, the new President was given permission by Neymar’s father to breach the confidentiality clauses, revealing that Barcelona had spent €86 million on Neymar, his wages for the next 5 years weren't included. Only the actual amount of money we spent to sign him, the entire operational cost.