Josep Maria Bartomeu appears at SPORT office for interview

Josep Maria Bartomeu, the former Barcelona president, appeared in the Sport office on Thursday and gave an extensive interview to defend his leadership of the club, between 2014 and 2020. It’s been a week where he feels attacked by the new board and CEO Ferran Reverter’s due diligence findings. The full interview will be out on Friday.

Bartomeu started by saying “it’s been a year since we resigned as the board, and although we would like to be more anonymous we made a statement because things have appeared referring to us that don’t seem accurate.”

Bartomeu wants to “explain to the socios that the situation is not as bad as it seems within the club because it’s a situation provoked by Covid”. 

He believes that the 555 million in losses the board have claimed are correct but “the effect of Covid was 225 million euros, for the loss of income, minus the savings made on bills.”