The FC Barcelona board continues to work on activating financial 'levers' to meet the obligations arising from the sale of 49% of Barça Vision in 2022. In theory, the club should receive 200 million euros before June 30, 2025, but there are still 145 'kilos' to be justified in the Barça coffers.
According to the president of the National Center for Football Coaches Training (CENAFE), Miguel Galán, the Azulgrana board is very close to announcing a new investor for the company Bridgeburg Invest SL.
This investor, probably European, would be responsible for paying the 40 million euros that Libero Football finally did not pay between 2023 and 2024. In addition, Galán assures that the new Barça partner would assume a percentage of the ownership of which Barça still retains 53% of its shares.
Libero's defaults and the breakdown of the mess with Barça Vision
In the summer of 2023, the German investment fund acquired 9.3% of the shares of Bridgeburg Invest in exchange for 40 million euros. However, the money never reached the Barça coffers, supposedly due to breaches by another anonymous investor associated with Libero.
Previously, Orpheus Media and Socios.com had also failed to comply with the promised payments for 49% (24.5% each) of the shares of Barça Vision. This forced the club to renegotiate the ownership and, together with Libero, Vestigia Holdings entered the company assuming 4.93% of the share package after paying 20 million euros.
Last summer, Amarak, which already owns the exploitation rights of the catering services in the new Spotify Camp Nou, assumed 6.13% of the ownership by paying 25 'kilos'. In total, the club has received €55M of the €200M budgeted by the subsidiary that groups the NFT's, web3 and metaverse business.
Having billed just a quarter of what was promised, Barça needs to receive at least the 40 'kilos' from Libero to justify to its auditor, Crowe Spain, the value of 208 million euros assigned to 53.42% of the ownership that the club retains.
This would allow Barcelona to bill a total of 95 million for the remaining 46.58% of Bridgeburg Invest, which was absorbed by Barça Productions in early 2025, a percentage that is divided among five investors, which are:
- Blaugrana Invest (18.96%)
- Vestigia (4.93%)
- Hellgas (14.73%)
- Orpheus (1.83%)
- Aramark (6.13%)
The VIP boxes, the other 'lever' pending to recover 'Fair Play'
The other 'ace up the sleeve' of FC Barcelona to return to the 1:1 rule this summer is to revalidate the sale of 5% of the exploitation rights of 475 VIP seats of the Sportify Camp Nou for the next 30 years.
LaLiga computed in January the 100 million euros corresponding to the operation, but Crowe Spain put 'pause' this income until the boxes were built and enabled in the Estadi.
A requirement that the club has met in a timely manner, as the work was delivered several weeks ago. These 100 'kilos', together with the 40 M€ from Barça Vision, will give Barça enough 'Fair Play' to register its reinforcements in the summer market without future obstacles, as happened the previous year with Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor.