Barcelona Records €91M In Losses For 2023-24 Season

Barcelona’s board of directors held a meeting on Monday to close out the 2023-24 financial year. The club announced that they ended the year with a net loss of $100 million. 

Despite the loss, FC Barcelona reported an operating profit of $12 million for the year, even after missing out on over $100 million in revenue due to relocating the first football team to the Estadio Olímpico Lluís Companys.

The club had to account for $141 million in extraordinary expenses before taxes during the 2023-24 season, mainly due to missed payments from some investor partners in Bridgeburg Invest SL, a company that bought 49% of Barça Vision in 2022.

On a positive note, Barcelona also announced a “record-breaking sponsorship income” of more than $210 million, and BLM (the club’s licensing and merchandising company) hit nearly $110 million in revenue, marking a 72% jump since its founding in 2018.

The club also announced “record profit from player transfers,” earning over €80 million from selling players like Dembélé, Kessie, Nico González, Abde, Chadi Riad, and Marc Guiu. They also managed to reduce its wage bill by $189 million, lowering it from $670 million to just over $500 million.

For the coming days, Barcelona  proposed a budget for the 2024-25 season, which will need approval from the General Assembly of Delegates. They forecast $250 million in sponsorship income and an operating profit of $5 million.

Barcelona delayed the announcement of their financial accounts from the summer, which were closed at the end of June. The club remained €91m in the red due to their operation with Barca Vision.

The sale of 49.5% of the subsidiary, and the subsequent non-payment of a number of their partners, has left the club struggling financially. 

The club initially valued the shares of the company at €200m, but until June had only received €59m of that amount.

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Barcelona projected a profit of €5m for the coming 2024-25 campaign, but it is not yet clear whether that includes paid sales of Barca Vision.

President Joan Laporta continues to assert that Barcelona are resurging financially, and praise their work in getting the club out of severe monetary crunch. The accounts will now be put to the club members to be passed in a general assembly, scheduled on October 20.