FC Barcelona study case

Volume 13

Issue 2 June 2015

FC Barcelona: “Més que un club” Case1 prepared by Professors Joseph FACAL2 and Sébastien ARCAND,3 and by Véronique LABELLE4 A professional sports team is a company: its aim is to produce and market a product – in this case, a sports performance in front of an audience. And, as with any other company, it is possible to study a sports team’s financial and administrative dimensions. But every company – and, by extension, every sports team – also has a social and cultural dimension. Beyond the production of the good being sold, a sports team is also an organizational space in which people from different horizons forge relations of cooperation, but also of confrontation. Over time, this can give rise to different ways of doing things, a specific style, certain habits, an institutional memory, shared values, etc. In short, it can lead to the emergence of a veritable corporate culture. Moreover, companies do not exist in a vacuum; rather, they operate within a society that is subject to constant economic, political, social, cultural and technological changes. These changes have a profound impact on companies, whose actions in turn influence the ways in which society evolves. This is the story of a sports team that has a very special identity, corporate culture and role in the society from which it emerged.

* * * Since 2003, FC Barcelona has ranked as the European soccer5 club that has won the most major trophies. It also happens to be one of the most prestigious and decorated clubs in the history of this sport in the world.6 Among its many exploits, it has won the Spanish League championship 22 times, the Spanish Cup 26 times, the European Cup four times, and the World Cup twice.7

1 Translation from French, by Andrea Neuhofer, of case #9 40 2015 002 “Le FC Barcelone: ‘Mès que un club’”. 2 Joseph Facal is an associate professor in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal. 3 Sébastien Arcand is an associate professor in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal. 4 Véronique Labelle is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Management at HEC Montréal. 5 The term soccer is more commonly used in the United States and Canada to differentiate this sport from North American football.

Elsewhere in the world, depending on the language, the sport is variously referred to as football, fùtbol, futebol, etc., or by the popular term foot. The terms soccer and football are used interchangeably in this case.

6 FC Barcelona has been the subject of countless books and articles of all kinds, including news articles, scientific articles, historical works, biographies of former star players, etc. The main sources used are indicated in the case and a list of references is provided at the end.

7 As at August 2014, the team has also won many other titles in competitions that are no longer held today.

© HEC Montréal 2015 All rights reserved for all countries. Any translation or alteration in any form whatsoever is prohibited. The International Journal of Case Studies in Management is published on-line (http://www.hec.ca/en/case_centre/ijcsm/), ISSN 1911-2599. This case is intended to be used as the framework for an educational discussion and does not imply any judgement on the administrative situation presented. Deposited under number 9 40 2015 002T with the HEC Montréal Case Centre, 3000, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, Montréal (Québec) Canada H3T 2A7.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

Since the founding of the modern Spanish League in 1929, FC Barcelona is also one of only three clubs, with Real Madrid and Athletic Bilbao, that has never lost its position in the top division. But it is not only its performance on the soccer field that makes this team so unique. Over the years, FC Barcelona (also known by its familiar name “Barça”) has also become a symbol for Catalonia and Catalan nationalism, as attested by its motto: més que un club (“more than a club”). It also has the legal status of a not-for-profit sporting club that is owned by several thousand volunteer fans1 (called socios in Spanish and socis in Catalan) who pay an annual fee (170 euros for an adult in 2013), giving them the right to vote for the president of the club, who oversees the club’s administration. The term of office has varied over the years, but since 2009, the president is elected for a six-year term. The club’s legal status precludes it from being acquired by a foreign investor. This form of democratic ownership – also adopted by Real Madrid – is surprising for such an elite team, especially in an era in which several leading clubs have either been purchased by foreign multi- millionaires (Chelsea, Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Paris Saint-Germain, Inter de Milan, etc.) or acquired by industrial empires controlled by an individual owner (as in the case of AC Milan, owned by Silvio Berlusconi) or a family (like Juventus of Turin, owned by the Agnelli family, founders of Fiat). FC Barcelona is actually a multi-sports club; in addition to its soccer team, it also has sections dedicated to professional basketball, handball, indoor football (futsal) and roller hockey teams, as well as amateur teams in several other sports. The more profitable sectors of the organization serve to help subsidize its other activities. Given the team’s impressive track record and its global popularity today, it can be easy to forget the club’s modest beginnings and the frequent economic and political upheavals that have marked its history.

The Early Years

FC Barcelona was founded on November 29, 1899, by Hans Kamper, a Swiss businessman and avid soccer fan, who adopted the Catalan version of his name, Joan Gamper.2 His entourage included a group of young Englishmen, Swiss and Germans who, as foreigners, had difficulty gaining admission into local teams. The club chose blue and red as its team colours. Its crest, which has changed little throughout its history, consists of the Catalan flag (red and yellow) and the cross of St. George. The team soon racked up several victories on the playing field, but its financial situation remained precarious for a long time. Gamper left the club in 1903 to become a prominent member of the Catalan business community, but he returned to FC Barcelona as president in 1908, at a time when the club was facing bankruptcy. Until committing suicide in 1930 under the weight of financial problems brought on by the economic crisis of 1929, Gamper took the helm of the club on several occasions to help lift its fortunes.

1 The number of club members fluctuates, but membership stood at around 180,000 in 2013. In order to deal with the rapidly rising number of members, membership has been reserved for family members of existing participants in the club since November 2010.

2 On the early years of FC Barcelona, see Burns (1999).

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

In an effort to drum up more financial support from the local community, Gamper gradually reinforced the Catalan identity of the club. In this way, he hoped to appeal to the burgeoning Catalan nationalism among Barcelona’s middle class. In 1917, the club adopted Catalan as its official language. Reacting to this move, the other leading Barcelona soccer club, Espanyol, which was founded in 1900, became the rallying point for all those who were opposed to FC Barcelona’s separatist tendencies and wanted to show their loyalty to Spain and its monarchy.1 To underscore its allegiance to King Alfonso XII, Espanyol added the word “Real” to its name in 1912, to become RCD Espanyol (Real Club Deportivo Espanyol). But it was FC Barcelona that was racking up all the sporting victories. In 1922, it inaugurated its new 30,000-seat Les Corts stadium, which was a huge venue at the time (capacity was later expanded to 60,000 seats). This would be its home stadium until the opening of Camp Nou in 1957. In 1924, the club had a total of 12,207 socios. But its most dramatic and tumultuous years still lay ahead.

The Dark Years

In 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera seized power in a military coup with the support of King Alfonso XIII. As head of government, he formed a military directory that suppressed democratic freedoms.2 His dictatorship lasted until 1930. In June 1925, spectators attending a soccer game at the Les Corts stadium booed the Spanish national anthem, the Marcha Real. In retaliation, the military government closed down the stadium for six months. Accused of separatism, Gamper was forced to leave the country. But the team continued to have many successes in the period leading up to the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. In 1930, General Primo de Rivera handed his resignation to King Alfonso XIII, but the latter’s own lack of popularity led him to go into exile, opening the way for democracy and the proclamation of the Second Republic in 1931. When the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) broke out, several of FC Barcelona’s players took up arms and joined the so-called “Republican” faction that was loyal to the leaders of the Second Republic. The republicans were opponents of the “Nationalist” camp which was led by a group of army leaders who had risen up against the democratic government of Manuel Azaña. General Sanjurjo was the first leader of the army rebels, but he was rapidly replaced by General Franco. On August 6, 1936, the president of FC Barcelona, Josep Sunyol, was arrested by Franco’s troops and executed for his support of the enemy faction. Shortly thereafter, the club undertook a North American tour that not only gave the players some respite from the turmoil at home, but also helped improve the team’s finances. During this tour, half of the players sought asylum in Mexico and France. On March 16, 1938, Francoist forces carried out an aerial bombing of Barcelona, killing over 3,000 people and partly destroying the club’s headquarters. In 1939, the Civil War ended in an overwhelming victory for Franco’s forces. At the end of the hostilities, General Franco immediately undertook to consolidate power around Madrid and to suppress cultural regionalisms.3 He placed one of his own men at the head of FC Barcelona and

1 Interview conducted with J. Sobrequés by Shobe (2008). 2 Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miguel_Primo_de_Rivera 3 See Balcells and Walker, 1996.

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the club was forced to change its name to the more Spanish-sounding Club de Fùtbol de Barcelona (until 1973) and to replace the Catalan flag on its crest with the Spanish flag (until 1949). Throughout the 1940s and 50s, each match was preceded by a ceremony displaying loyalty to the military regime. But the dictator’s political acumen also made him realize that he could use sport as an outlet for social tensions. However, without their own political parties, government or parliament, and with the severe repression of their language, FC Barcelona increasingly became a symbol of the pride and national identity of an entire people. The dictatorship of General Franco lasted until 1975.

The Climb to the Top

In 1951, FC Barcelona’s acquisition of Hungarian player Làszlò Kubala, the first international star of the post-war period, marked the beginning of a new era for the club. In the first half of the 1950s, the team won just about trophy. In 1953, a power struggle took place between Barça and Real Madrid to sign the Argentinean player Alfredo Di Stefano, who would eventually go on to become one of the greatest players of all time. In the end, he was signed by Real Madrid. The personal intervention of General Franco to break the deadlock was perceived by many as showing favouritism to the Madrid side and led to renewed tensions between the two teams. A perception gradually emerged, rightly or wrongly, that Real Madrid was “Franco’s club” and embodied Spanish unity.1 Di Stefano’s arrival signalled the dawn of an era of domination by Real Madrid that lasted until the early 1960s. When Barça inaugurated its new stadium, Camp Nou, in 1957 (initial capacity of 90,000 seats; today’s capacity 99,354), the Francoist regime prevented the club from naming it “Joan Gamper Stadium.” At the time, FC Barcelona had 49,000 socios. The previous year, in 1956, the crushing of the Hungarian revolution by Soviet troops had resulted in the dissolution of that era’s great Hungarian team, the runner-up world champion in 1954, and the arrival in Spain of several of its star players: Kocsis and Czibor joined Kubala with Barça and Ferenc Puskas joined Real Madrid. The rivalry between Spain’s two football giants had reached a peak. In 1968, Barça’s president, Narcìs de Carreras, made a brief but historic declaration whose meaning was clear to everyone: “El Barça es més que un club” (Barça is more than a club). That same year, under its manager, Salvador Artigas, a former Republican army pilot during the Civil War, FC Barcelona won the Spanish Cup in a victory over Real in Madrid, in the presence of the dictator Franco. The intense sporting rivalry that continues to exist today between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona, stoked by identity-based and political tensions, is not unique in the world of soccer. In Scotland, for example, soccer has been dominated for over a century by two clubs that both call Glasgow home: the Celtic and the Rangers. The first is traditionally associated with the Irish and Catholic community, with more of a republican slant, while the second is mainly associated with the Protestant community and an attachment to the British crown.2

1 See Hargreaves, 2000. 2 See Bradley, 1998.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

In 1973, the arrival of the Dutchman Johan Cruijff, the best player in Europe at the time, laid the groundwork for a new period of success for FC Barcelona. Cruijff became immensely popular and respected for his behaviour both on and off the pitch. He declared that he had chosen Barça over Real because the latter was too closely associated with Franco. He also made an effort to learn Catalan and to assimilate in the Barcelona community. Around the same time, the club’s management, several of whom were close to the centre-right Nationalist party Convergència Democràtica, also decided that, with the growing signs that the Francoist dictatorship was running out of steam, it was time to restore the Catalan identity of the team. The Catalan flag was raised in the stadium, Catalan was used to address the crowd during games, and the team expressed its support for the mandatory teaching of Catalan in schools. In 1973, the team reverted to its original Catalan name – Futbol Club Barcelona – and, in 1975, Catalan became the official language of the club.

The Nùñez (1978-2000) and Gaspart (2000-2003) Years

The death of the dictator Franco in 1975 opened the way for the return of democracy in Spain. In 1978, for the first time in the history of Barça, the president was elected in a vote by all the members of the club. The socios elected Josep Nùñez, who would remain president for 22 years and whose reign was marked by a prudent and conservative management style. On the pitch, the 1980s and 1990s were a period of both successes and disappointments, but throughout these years the club remained one of the most celebrated soccer teams of both Spain and Europe. Several of the most illustrious players of these two decades wore the blue and red Barça jersey, including Maradona, Schuster, Koeman, Laudrup, Romario, Stoichkov and Guardiola. After retiring from the field, the Dutch player Cruijff rapidly became an influential figure in the club, first as a coach and then as an advisor. He played a major role in persuading the club’s management to establish La Masia, which is the training centre for the team’s promising young players, and to focus on the development of its own players. He also gradually won the team over to the idea that the beauty of how the game is played is almost as important as the result. Resolutely modernist in his approach, he followed the teachings of his master, Rinus Michels, the inventor of “total football” (all 10 players attack, all 10 players defend and they constantly change positions on the pitch, requiring them to be highly versatile). Cruijff left the club in 1996, after having won 11 trophies in eight seasons as coach, including four consecutive Spanish League championships between 1990 and 1994. The 1990s ushered in a number of changes that would have a major impact on world soccer, but even more so on the Spanish League. Lax management and a lack of transparency had led the Spanish clubs to rack up astronomical debts, forcing the government to intervene in the form of a law in 1990. In exchange for having the majority of their debt forgiven, the clubs were forced to convert to limited liability companies open to foreign investors that could purchase shares in the company. In no time, major investors bought up large blocks of shares, effectively putting an end, in the majority of cases, to the system of democratic ownership by members that had been the norm to that point. Only those clubs with a positive balance sheet up to the 1985-1986 season – namely, FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Athletic

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

Bilbao and CD Osasuna – were able to keep their system of ownership based on fee-paying members.1 Then, in December 1995, a decision by the Court of Justice of the European Communities known as the Bosman ruling (after the footballer Jean-Marc Bosman, who had challenged his transfer from the Belgian club FC Liege to the French club Dunkerque) made it illegal to place quotas on the number of foreign players a team was allowed to sign. This decision led to an influx of South American and African players in Europe, thus contributing to the globalization of soccer that was already under way. It also had the effect of widening the gap between wealthy and poorer teams by allowing the former to purchase the services of the best players from more modest teams with no restrictions. This caused a spike in the salaries of the most sought-after players. From that point on, teams began to focus less on developing their own players starting in youth and more on acquiring players based on their needs or what they could afford. FC Barcelona always bucked this trend. London’s prestigious Chelsea club was the first team to present a line-up of 11 foreigners on the pitch, without a single English player. At FC Barcelona, Johan Cruijff’s successors as coach – Bobby Robson and Louis Van Gaal – were also able to count on international stars acquired at a high cost, including Ronaldo, Figo, Rivaldo and Kluivert, but the end of the 1990s and start of the 2000s would be marked by mediocre performances on the field and serious tensions within the organization. The internal tensions were rooted in four main causes. Unsurprisingly, the first had to do with the lack of trophies in the 1999-2003 period. The second cause was the lack of transparency of the Nùñez-Gaspart administration at several levels. At FC Barcelona, the general assembly of 3,000 members had several important powers, including the power to present motions of non- confidence against the president. Since the full list of members was not made public out of respect for privacy, several members complained that it was impossible to know how the members of the general assembly were chosen and to mount a campaign to dislodge the management team, whose members were the only ones who knew who had voting rights. The third cause of discontent was the lack of transparency in Nùñez’s financial management. Finally, some people accused him of wanting to gradually erode the club’s Catalan identity, purportedly in order to make the club more competitive. One thing that’s certain is that Nùñez made no secret of his interest in the innovative business model adopted by Manchester United, which had the wind in its sails at the end of the 1990s: the team was listed on the stock exchange, opening up the possibility for some shareholders to control more shares than others; its marketing of the brand and numerous tie-in products was aggressive; it gave key importance to stadium boxes, etc.2 These tensions triggered a number of events. In 1997, a group of young club members joined forces to challenge the Nùñez-Gaspart administration and wrest control of the club away from it. The group, which called itself L’Elefant Blau (the Blue Elephant), was led by Joan Laporta, who was Johan Cruijff’s lawyer, and Sandro Rosell. Their initiative had a snowball effect that led to the resignation of Nùñez after 22 years at the club’s helm. During the elections of 2000, the Blue Elephant backed the candidacy of Lluis Bassat, an advocate for change, but it was Joan Gaspart, Nùñez’s vice-president and a defender of the status quo, who was elected by a narrow margin.

1 See Hamil et al., 2010. 2 See Burns, 1999.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

However, during his reign, from 2000 to 2003, Gaspart did not succeed in restoring the team’s sporting success or easing the internal tensions. In the 2003 elections, Joan Laporta, the leader of the Blue Elephant faction, ran for the position of president on a platform calling for profound changes to the club’s business strategy, while also strongly emphasizing the team’s important historical, political and cultural role as a symbol of Catalan identity and pride. He won the election over six adversaries, including his former ally Lluis Bassat.

The Laporta and Rosell Years: A New Golden Age

The situation that greeted Laporta’s team when it took the helm of the club was catastrophic.1 At the time, FC Barcelona was the most indebted club in Spain, with debts totalling 181 million euros. In 2002-2003, wages represented 88% of the club’s annual revenue, but this revenue was only half that of Manchester United and the club ranked just 13th in the world in terms of its financial performance. The operating deficit in 2002-2003 was 72 million euros. In terms of its performance on the field of play, the club had finished 6th in the Spanish League that season, its worst showing since 1987-1988. It hadn’t won a single trophy in four years. The new management team’s first decision was to keep the collective ownership model and not court outside investors. However, management decided to pursue an aggressive campaign to boost both revenue and the team’s brand image. Laporta and his team drew up a list of four main strategic objectives, broken down into 45 concrete measures. The primary focus was, naturally, on FC Barcelona’s soccer component, but these measures were expected to positively impact all of the organization’s other activities as well. The four strategic objectives identified were: • To give top priority to sporting success by starting to win again as soon as possible; • To improve transparency in the governance of the club and increase its membership; • To improve the team’s financial situation by controlling costs and boosting revenue; • To implement a series of corporate social responsibility initiatives aimed at positioning the club

as an institution that acknowledges its responsibility toward society beyond the sports arena.

1 See Allen and Eguía, 2008.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

These four strategic objectives1 were linked by a common thread represented by the following diagram, baptized the “virtuous circle,” which was designed by Ferràn Soriano, Joan Laporta’s vice-president.

(Source: Hamil et al., 2010, p. 484) Joan Laporta described both the global and pragmatic ambitions of the club’s new management team in the following terms:

The idea was to position Barça back at the top of the world of sport and media. Manchester United charges €2 million for each friendly; Barça charges only €300,000. We must succeed in achieving the situation where a young boy in Singapore or Tokyo wears a Barça shirt and not a Manchester United shirt.2

To help improve the club’s situation, a decision was also made to break with tradition by requiring newly elected members on the Board of Directors to participate in all aspects of the club’s operational management, even if they weren’t paid. Professional managers were also placed in various key positions within the organization. While they were all fans of the club, they came from outside the world of Spanish football. Then, everyone set to work on achieving the four strategic objectives. To meet the goal of starting to win again – the key to all the rest – the first step was to sign world- class players with strong commercial potential. Efforts to sign David Beckham failed when he decided to join Real Madrid, a decision that said a lot about FC Barcelona’s dire situation at the

1 This section owes much to Hamil et al., 2010. 2 Interview with Joan Laporta conducted on February 17, 2004 by D. Allen and R. Eguía (2008).

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

time. But Barça bounced back by attracting Brazil’s Ronaldinho and Cameroon’s Samuel Eto’o. In keeping with this strategy of signing foreign stars with large salaries, the team acquired the services of Frenchman Thierry Henry, between 2007 and 2010, and of the Swede Zlatan Ibrahimovic (a less positive experience), between 2009 and 2011. The type of star power offered by such players was considered indispensable not only for boosting revenue from broadcasting, ticket sales, jerseys and other merchandise, but also for attracting sponsors. At the same time, the Laporta team was smart enough to know that marketing based entirely on individual star players could easily backfire in the event of an injury, a scandal in their private life, poor performance, or simply the player’s departure at the end of his contract. Thus, it was also considered important to “sell” the team as a collective whole, as a group, which required building a strong identity for it. To do this, they needed a team composed of both foreign stars and young local players from the team’s training centre in whom fans would recognize themselves – native sons of the country who they knew had the talent necessary to succeed at the highest level of the game, as Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernàndez and Andrés Iniesta had done. The team’s subsequent sporting results speak for themselves: since 2003, led first by coach Frank Rijkaard and then Pep Guardiola, no other team has won as many major titles. And, as hoped, these sporting successes had a positive trickle-down effect on all the other aspects of the organization. To increase transparency at the management level and strengthen ties with members, an electronic newsletter was created and sent out regularly. The club also created its own television channel, Barça TV, offering its 40,000 members 10 hours of exclusive daily coverage of the team’s activities. Acting on the new management team’s calculation that each new block of 10,000 members would generate additional annual revenue of one million euros, it launched a massive recruiting campaign nicknamed El Grand Repte (the Big Challenge), which brought the number of members from 105,000 in 2002 to 162,979 as of June 30, 2008, 17% of whom lived outside of Spain. The campaign reinforced fans’ sense of belonging and community, while at the same time allowing the team to keep its ticket prices at a relatively affordable level.1 To help rebuild the club’s financial strength, several vigorous measures were implemented to control costs and generate revenue. On the expenses front, the club renegotiated its debt repayment terms with the major banks in order to gain enough leeway to sign some more expensive players. It managed to reduce the payroll portion of the club’s revenue, bringing it down from 66% in 2001 to 49% in 2005. Stricter controls were also placed on the distribution of free tickets to “friends” of the club’s managers. On the revenue side of things, the rise in membership and the renewed success on the playing field accounted for much of the 12.7% increase in attendance between the 2002-2003 and 2005-2006 seasons, resulting in a doubling of sales figures (food, souvenirs, etc.) on game days. New boxes were also added at Camp Nou and the club began offering special packages for foreign tourists that included air transportation, hotel accommodation and game tickets. The club promoted the rental

1 In 2006, the cheapest season ticket for Camp Nou was 83 euros, compared to 1,068 euros for the cheapest ticket at the Emirates Stadium, the home of London’s Arsenal football club. Source of data: Hamil et al. (2010).

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

of its facilities for conventions and trade fairs of all kinds. Most importantly, the club capitalized on its newly revived brand image to sign a new, five-year broadcasting deal, first with Televisiò de Catalunya and then Mediapro, that was much more lucrative than previous agreements. In 2006, the club signed a 50-50 partnership deal with Nike to provide FC Barcelona’s team uniform as well as managing all of its merchandising. This drew the attention of other sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Estrella Damm (beer) and La Caixa (a financial institution), which saw a good opportunity and also wanted in. A lot of effort also went into developing the club’s popularity outside of Spain by boosting the number of friendly matches played in the promising Asian market. In 2008-2009, the club’s revenue, excluding transactions related to player transfers, came from the following sources: broadcasting rights (43%), merchandise sales (31%), and ticket sales (26%). Overall, the club’s revenue from all these sources plus player transfers rose from 174.2 million euros in 2003-2004, to 445.1 million euros in 2009-2010. At the community level, the FC Barcelona Foundation, established in 1994 and a supporter of various charities, was much more active starting in 2003. Realizing the unstoppable globalization of professional sport and the important role it could play in advancing other worthwhile causes, the club signed a reverse sponsorship deal in 2006, under which it agreed to wear the logo of UNICEF (the UN humanitarian organization dedicated to improving the conditions of children around the world) on its jerseys and to donate 7 million euros to the organization over five years. This agreement was a first in the world of professional sports. It would be wrong to assume, however, that everything was easy for Laporta and his team. Far from it, in fact. In 2005, Laporta’s main collaborator, Sandro Rosell, a former manager at Nike, walked out along with four other executives to protest what they saw as the president’s authoritarian and centralist style of management. Then, in October of that year, Laporta was forced to accept the resignation of his brother-in-law, Alejandro Echevarrìa, from the club’s Board when the media revealed that he had once been a member of a foundation honouring the dictator Franco. None of this prevented Laporta from being re-elected in 2006. But in July 2008, a motion of non- confidence was submitted to a vote by all the members that fell just short of the two-thirds majority needed to remove Laporta from office. This left him free to complete his second term of office in 2010. The rules of the club prevented him from seeking a third term. On July 1st, 2010, an election was held to choose his successor. It was won by Laporta’s former ally, and now rival, Sandro Rosell. One of Rosell’s first moves was to announce a five-year agreement with the Qatar Foundation to put its logo on the front of the team’s jersey (this logo was replaced with that of Qatar Airways in 2013). The UNICEF logo was moved to the bottom back of the players’ shirts. A number of other partnership deals were also recently signed with various corporations, including Audi, Turkish Airlines, Seiko, Telefònica, etc. These ups and downs should not obscure the fact that, starting in 2003, under the successive presidencies of Laporta and Rosell, FC Barcelona experienced a new golden age in terms of both its sporting and financial performance. This is especially true of the four seasons from 2008-2009 to 2011-2012, during which the team was coached by Pep Guardiola, one of Barça’s leading players in the 1990s. Under his leadership, Barça has offered a quality of play that may be unprecedented in this sport, based on a style that emphasizes maintaining maximum possession of the ball, a lot of passing, fluidity and high pressing. The 2008-2009 season was particularly remarkable, with FC

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

Barcelona becoming the first club ever to win six major trophies: the Spanish League, the Spanish Cup, the Champions League (the European championship), the Spanish Super Cup, the European Super Cup and the FIFA Club World Cup. During this period, the team was able to count on a star-powered generation of exceptional players including the likes of Messi, Iniesta, Xavi, Piqué, Puyol, Busquets, etc., nearly all of whom had trained with the club. Under Guardiola’s watch, Barça won 14 titles in four years, leading many soccer connoisseurs to regard it as the best team in history to date. As for FC Barcelona’s distinctive policy of favouring the development of its own players, nothing illustrates it better than comparing the almost simultaneous arrival in the Spanish League of two of the greatest players in history: Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo for Real Madrid, and Argentina’s Lionel Messi for Barça. While the first arrived from Britain’s Manchester United via a transfer estimated to be worth 94 million euros, the second, established in Spain since the age of 12, was a pure product of the La Masia training centre. In 2012, Guardiola stepped down and was replaced by his assistant Tito Vilanova. Suffering from throat cancer, Vilanova in turn resigned at the start of the 2013-2014 season, and the coaching job went to the Argentinean Gerardo Martino. Several of his players, along with those of Real Madrid, form the backbone of the formidable Spanish national football team, nicknamed La Roja, that won the World Cup in 2010 and the European Championship in 2008 and 2012. In 2013, Forbes magazine estimated FC Barcelona’s worth at around 2 billion euros, ranking it the third most valuable soccer team in the world behind Real Madrid and Manchester United.1 In terms of the club’s wage bill, the team also ranked third in the world in 2013, after Manchester City and Real Madrid, with an average salary of 5.5 million euros per year, per player.2

Epilogue

In today’s globalized world of professional soccer, nothing can be taken for granted at either the sporting level or the financial level. We are seeing things today we never thought we’d see. A legendary club, the Glasgow Rangers, declared bankruptcy in 2012. The modest FC Màlaga, acquired in 2010 by the wealthy Qatari investor Abdullah Al Thani, seemed to want to follow in the footsteps of PSG – i.e., to play in the big leagues – by spending like there was no tomorrow, but then the owner changed his mind, literally from one day to the next. Turbulence and instability have become the new norm. Despite this new sporting and financial reality, FC Barcelona nonetheless continues to exude strength and determination. Its aim is to constantly reach for the top and to never let its name fall off the short list of the five to 10 best teams in the world. For the foreseeable future, this goal appears to be well within its grasp. That does not mean, however, that FC Barcelona’s position is unassailable. It had a disappointing 2013-2014 season on the playing field, mirroring that of the Spanish national team, which was

1 “Les 10 clubs à la plus forte valeur financière,” sportune.fr, April 18, 2013. 2 “FC Barcelone, Real et les 7 clubs les plus généreux en salaries,” sportune.fr, July 13, 2013.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

bounced from the 2014 World Cup at the group stage. Several controversies also cast a pall on the season, including tax fraud allegations against Lionel Messi, allegations of irregularities in relation to the signing of Brazilian star Neymar, which led to the resignation of the president Rosell, and, more recently, the signing of the controversial Uruguayan striker, Luis Suarez, who, while indisputably a great player, has been involved in numerous incidents of unsportsmanlike behaviour, including biting an opposing player during the last World Cup. Barça’s iconic captain and the team’s heart and soul, Carles Puyol, also announced his retirement, leaving a leadership void that it will be difficult to fill. A new coach, Luis Enrique, is to make his debut in 2014-2015. All signs seem to point to a period of transition for the club, but Barça being what it is, it appears “condemned” to win. However, if it wants to preserve its Catalan identity without depriving itself of the advantages of globalization, it will need to maintain a strong vision, dexterity and vigilance. And what became of Joan Laporta? Throughout his tenure at the helm of the club, he was known for making separatist declarations without fear of the controversy they might trigger. On April 14, 2006, for example, he made the following statement: “Catalonia is a nation in its own right. One day, the Spanish oppression will end. I hope to live long enough to see a World Cup match between Catalonia and Spain.”1 No one was surprised when, immediately upon his departure from FC Barcelona, he made the leap into active politics. In March 2010, he launched an Internet site promoting his ideas and published a book on his vision for the future of Catalonia, with the title Un Somni per als meus fills (A Dream for My Children). In November 2010, he was elected to Catalonia’s parliament and, in 2011, he became a city councillor for Barcelona. On December 12, 2013, the president of Catalonia’s coalition government, Artur Mas, announced a referendum on the independence of Catalonia, which he hoped to hold on November 9, 2014. The central government in Madrid contested the legality of this referendum and vowed to oppose it by all constitutional means possible. One thing that is certain is that relations between Catalonia and Spain will continue to be fraught with complexities and difficult to predict. But at the heart of all this, FC Barcelona can be counted on to remain, for a great many Catalonians, but also many Spanish people in the rest of the country, més que un club.

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BRADLEY, Joseph M. (1998). “‘We Shall Not Be Moved’! Mere Sport, Mere Songs?: A Tale of Scottish Football”, in Fanatics! Power, Identity and Fandom in Football, A. Brown (ed.), New York, Routledge, pp. 203-218.

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FC Barcelona: “Més que un club”

HAMIL, Sean, Geoff WALTERS and Lee WATSON (2010). “The Model of Governance at FC Barcelona: Balancing Member Democracy, Commercial Strategy, Corporate Social Responsibility and Sporting Performance”, Soccer & Society, Vol. 11, No. 4, pp. 475-504.

HARGREAVES, John (2000). Freedom for Catalonia? Catalan Nationalism, Spanish Identity and the Barcelona Olympic Games, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

SHOBE, Hunter (2008). “Place, Identity and Football: Catalonia, Catalanisme and Football Club Barcelona, 1899-1975”, National Identities, Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 329-343.

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2015-06-01

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[email protected] or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.