offpitchJordi Farré, the head of the ‘Som gent normal’ candidacy, speaks about his project for the club.
One of the most important parts of his proposal is replacing Nike with a new"own Barça" brand in order to increase the revenue the club gets from this area.
“Nike receives about €180 million from selling Barça apparel. The distribution network costs about 25-30% of that and they pay the club €30 million. Do the numbers. We’re talking about a business with about €110 million profits,” he added.
Farré also insists that he has an offer of a sponsorship worth €40 million for the training shirt and the shirt of the other sections, which would make the first team’s shirt “free” to use the Catalunya brand.
“The Generalitat [Catalan government] has many entities – Catalunya tourism, the Port of Barcelona, Tourism on the Costa Brava, amongst others – and they’re planning on an investment of €118 million per year in publicity. Andalusia does this, The Balearic Islands do this with their football teams and it works. We haven’t invented anything new,” Farré explained.
He talked about the current football marketing market and recalled that Manchester United gets €17 million for their training shirt sponsor and €68 million from their main sponsor. “To sponsor Barça you need about €50 million and the business model does not go through Qatar. Now the club has been completely sold to Qatar: the stadium, the television, the publicity, even the seats in the stadium, and everything for €35 million,” he noted.
“Anyone who says that the big brands aren’t fighting for Barça is lying. How can it be that they’re willing to pay for publicity on TV when Barça is playing but no one wants to be on the shirt? I don’t understand that,” he added.
On the other hand, Farré is not backing Bartomeu’s idea for the remodeling of the Camp Nou, which he says could put the club in danger.
“We wouldn’t want to spend more than €350 million on this and we don’t approve of the calculations the board has made: €200 million from our own funds, €200 million loan from banks and €200 million for the name of the stadium. I think that we can get €35 million per year to change the name of the stadium because other clubs in Europe are already doing that. Barça cannot generate an expenditure of €350 million and we will recover that amount by selling the name,” he said.
Asked about the romantic component of the stadium’s name, Farré was very clear: “When I go to the stadium I say I am going to Barça’s stadium and I will say that for the rest of my life. I would call it Estadi Hans Gamper if it were up to me, but that can’t happen if we decide to sell it and obtain important revenue from it.”
He would also like the stadium to be a “smart stadium” with a series of facilities for the socís. He uses the examples of the 49ers of San Francisco Levi’s Stadium, but also La Caja Mágica in Madrid, the Allianz Arena in Múnich or Borussia Dortmund’s stadium.
Farré also said that he won’t promise any lowering of the prices of season tickets: “If any pre-candidate is speaking about that it’s just populism. We can assure you that we won’t raise the prices. What is clear is that Barça shouldn’t be earning its money from the socís but from other areas.”
He didn’t want to talk about names, calling this an absurd tactic during campaigns: “If Laporta doesn’t win can anyone assure us that Abidal won’t be hired by the one who does, even if it is in another capacity? Using names in campaigns isn’t very useful.”
“I have a sporting director in mind, but I won’t say his name. The people on my team have spoken to him and we have agreed, but he has a contract with another team and out of respect we won’t say his name,” Farré also said.
Asked who he would sign he said: “No one. We can’t sign anyone. If I am Barça’s president I will speak to the coach and try to sign the player he needs, with the approval of the sporting secretary.”
He then moved on to talking about La Masia: “La Masia should be restructured. The Juvenil A team should be a part of the academy again, to make sure these kids don’t become too famous too soon for their own good. We are proposing an Academy Director who will be in charge of watching over the development of these kids from a sporting and personal standpoint. Studying is the basis of the formation of every sportsperson. We have to have a similar system to the American one in which the academic results are a determining factor in the personal evolution of each player. We have to try and make sure that our kids don’t just grow up to be sportspeople, but also people who have an education.”
About the other sporting sections of the club Farré said that he would like to restructure them: “I have a lot of faith in the sections and we will work a lot for them. We cannot allow the basketball academy not to be a dominant force in Spain and let all the junior titles go to Madrid. As for the senior basketball project, I think that Xavi Pascual’s time is over as a coach. He has done a lot for the club and he should be a part of the organization, but cycles finish and that’s not a bad thing. Chichi Creus is also replaceable.”
Asked to mention something good about all of the presidents from FC Barcelona's recent history, he noted: “From Nuñez his economic managements, from Laporta the social and sporting change he brought, from Rosell the modernization of the club. And from Bartomeu the bravery of taking the reins when many were against him (myself included).”
Farré doesn’t understand why the elections were called on July 18th (date that marks the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936): “We shouldn’t even leave our houses that day; there is nothing to celebrate about it. The elections shouldn’t have been scheduled on that day or on any other Saturday.”
“The board has ignored the club’s status that they themselves changed. If we couldn’t sign anyone or plan the next season, the best thing would have been to have the elections in September or at least on a game day,” he noted. He also says that the implementation of electronic voting is “very easy.”
An advocate for Catalunya’s independence, Farré explains that the idea of having Catalunya’s brand on the shirt is not a romantic one: “I think that this country will only work if we stop looking at what they’re doing in Madrid and we start looking towards Europe and the world. Barça is an integral part of this, but it is not a political entity. The club has to be at the country’s disposal and accompany it on the road it's taking.”
He doesn’t understand how Josep Maria Bartomeu has decided to run for elections when he is on trial for the Neymar Case: “If I was accused of a supposed crime committed while managing the club I wouldn’t run. What if he is convicted?”
Farré assures that he is not doing this to be in the spotlight: “If I don’t win you won’t see me hanging around. I’m not interested in being anyone’s vice-president, I have a project and I want to implement it. I don’t want to be an executive just for the sake of it. If I don’t get the signatures required I will go home. I present them to the club and that’s it. I’ll offer my project to the one who wins the elections and I'll say goodbye,” he explained.
