Barcelona president’s ‘war-chest’ funded by MediaPro CEO – originally posted on Sportslens.com
According to Spanish outlet Expansion, MediaPro CEO and co-founder Jaume Roures has helped newly-elected Barcelona President Joan Laporta complete the €125 million guarantee he needs to cover for the club’s presidency.
| Jaume Roures, co-founder of MediaPro joins Eduard Romeu to complete the 125 million guarantee that Laporta had to cover for the presidency of Barça. [@expansioncom] pic.twitter.com/NbNPKzlokK
— La Senyera (@LaSenyera) March 17, 2021
The obligatory deposit payment was made today, with the media mogul providing €30 million out of it.
It allowed the Barcelona chief to be officially sworn into the position following his success at the polls earlier this month.
Laporta and his executive board must first present a bank guarantee worth 15% of the club’s budget within 10 days of being elected before taking office, and it must also be ratified by the Spanish top-flight, or the club would have been forced to call a new election process.
MediaPro once tabled a bid for La Liga TV rights, and was in the limelight for all the wrong reasons after pulling out of a financial commitment to Ligue 1 earlier this season and withholding two successive payments.
MediaPro owns media rights to La Liga and is in charge of handling VAR reviews, and having one of its founders financially backing Laporta does not look ideal.
Apparently, it does not appear that is against the rules in Spain, but it would be interesting to see how Real Madrid and co react to the revelation.
Barcelona are currently four points behind La Liga leaders Atletico Madrid with 11 games left, and they will fancy their chances of pipping Diego Simeone’s side to the title.
Defending champions Madrid are just two points behind the Catalans, and next month’s El Clasico and May’s clash between Barca and Atletico will definitely have a huge say on the title race.
Barcelona are unbeaten in the league since the start of the year, with 11 wins and a draw to their name.