Freixa: Barça will come out of financial hole quicker than their rivals

Toni Freixa, one of the three candidates for the Barcelona presidency, says the Catalan club "will come out of this financial situation before our competitors" in the economic presentation of his project for the club.

"Barça are the biggest club in the world," Freixa said. "In 121 years of history, the club has been through really tough times and this will not be the last."

According to the candidate, Barça find themselves in this complicated situation because of "inadequate management and the pandemic which we're all going through."

And he added that to turn the situation around, his first measure, if he's elected on March 7, "will be to manage the sporting side of things."

For Freixa, "the model between 2015 and 2020 consisted of billing, in wanting to set records for bringing money in." But he asked "For what does that serve if you also have the records for spending and debt? And that comes from bad planning on the sporting side of things."

As an example, he used European champions Bayern Munich. "They won the Champions League with a budget of 750 million euros. If you manage the sporting side of things well, the financial results will come, but you can't be obsessed with bringing in one billion every year."

Freixa's strategy consists of "reducing spending more than increasing revenue." In that sense, he said that "the plan to reduce costs starts with speaking with the players, especially with (Lionel) Messi."

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