FC Barcelona Is An Example Of Awful Fan Ownership

FC Barcelona always used to be the inspiration.

Owned by its members or Socios, the fans elect the club’s President, consistently have a say in the strategy and adhere to a set of principles that appeal to supporters in the UK, many of whom felt disenfranchised.

In the late 2000s, the club managed to be incredibly successful whilst also displaying at almost every turn examples of purity. The team used to play without a sponsor on their shirts and had “Mes Que Un Club” or ‘more than a club’ emblazoned on the seats of the Nou Camp stadium.

So when the idea of making fan ownership the norm in Britain began being floated by politicians the Catalans were frequently the example cited by leaders and the media.

But while efforts to redirect the power at the clubs into the hands of supporters have continued in the UK, you’ll find fewer people citing FC Barcelona as the desirable model for clubs to aspire to be these days.

This is because the La Liga side has become an example of how not to run a soccer club. Blighted by a dysfunctional and short-term strategy the past decade has seen the once-mighty European force reduced to a joke.

In fact, the financial situation has got so bad that the Barcelona leadership has been forced, in recent years, to fend off suggestions that it may have to abandon the one aspect that was so aspirational: fan ownership.

“A private company, with me as president, will never happen,” President Joan Laporta said in November 2022.

“My reason for existing as president of Barça is that Barça is never a public limited company, that Barça is always owned by the members of the club.”

“I am a firm defender, as my career attests, that Barça always be the property of its members. Some partners that for almost 123 years of history have struggled to maintain this uniqueness despite many vicissitudes.

“This arrangement connects us to our city, our country, our community and we are not going to change it.”

“My presidency guarantees that Barça will always belong to its members.

“If someone wants to feed this fear, they are wrong. I am surprised that there are voices that continue to insist that Barça is heading towards a public limited company because it is totally false.”

Laporta might have been making firm statements about the sovereignty of the organization but the truth is that in order to steady the ship he was having to find other things to sell equity in.

The now notorious ‘financial levers’, which FC Barcelona pulled to fund outlays in the transfer market post-COVID, were generated by mortgaging future income or creating new projects for investment.

Striking a deal with a private equity firm that sees it take a chunk of future TV revenue or selling stakes in tech venture Barca Studios might have been preferable to diluting the level of fan ownership, but there are few who’d argue these weren’t risks which could come back to bite the club.

However, according to Laporta, the alternative was to seek cash from the very people that it would be unthinkable to ask: the fans.

“With the levers, we have saved Barça from ruin, we are recovering economically and we have been able to construct a competitive team,” he explained.

“We no longer have the fears of the beginning of the mandate, when we received such a disastrous legacy.

“At that time we ruled out the option of liquidating the club, of course, or asking the members for money, because they are not responsible for the disastrous management.”

“What we decided was to value some assets that the club had and sell them at a very good price, given the circumstances in which we found ourselves.

“I will never get tired of thanking the members who gave us the authorization to activate these levers that have saved the club. In addition, these assets represent only 5 percent of the club’s annual income, so the income statements for the coming years are not significantly affected.

“And I want to remind you that this part of the assets that we have sold can be recovered after 25 years.”

Love Is Not A Quality For A Good CFO

The uncomfortable question is why was FC Barcelona in that position to begin with?

Part of the reason is undoubtedly the ownership model which inevitably leads to a short-termist approach.

Having a democratic political model where Presidents can be voted out with regularity means everyone has to live in an environment of constant noise.

Supporter satisfaction is determined by success in the field and ambition shown in the transfer market.

But it is the desire to satisfy this demand that has been the cause of so many of the problems for FC Barcelona.

From its disastrous purchase of Phillipe Coutinho after selling Neymar to the expensive failed acquisitions of Antoine Griezemann and Ousmane Dembele the curse of needing to have a big-name talent to appease the fans has led to financial ruin.

The lack of strategy, born from the instability at the top of the club, contrasts with the dictatorial success of Florentino Pérez at Real Madrid whose consistent presence at the top of the club has enabled him to pursue a more calculated strategy of investing smaller amounts in younger up-and-coming stars.

It would be wrong to blame the supporters for this lack of vision they are after all fans, not financial officers.

The trouble is that their emotions and love have been allowed to spill out and wreak havoc with the balance sheet.

In the UK it is almost sacrilegious to suggest fan-ownership is not the ideal everyone should aspire towards.

And while there are countless examples of how private ownership has led to disastrous financial situations which have destroyed historic soccer institutions the truth is that it is not as clear cut as people think.

Nearly all of the examples of fan ownership in England have come with the supporters saving a club in dire need. They have been saviors of a sinking ship and instantly preferably to what existed before.

There are little to no examples of how the model might work at the top of the game or of supporters determining direction in a meaningful way.

FC Barcelona is that example and it shows the dangers of handing over the keys to people who go for the love.

This is not to say fans shouldn’t have a seat at the top table, the point is that, just as is the case with individual owners, you need checks and balances before giving them the deciding vote.