Bartomeu came out to defend himself in an interview and took a shot at Madrid: he said they have hired an ex-referee who is married to the head of women's refereeing, and that for him, that smells bad...
Josep Maria Bartomeu came out again this Monday in defense of his tenure at Barcelona. The former Barca president denied, in interviews with ABC and Culemania, having ruined Barca and was critical of some decisions and actions by Joan Laporta.
"Recently, I met with several lawyers, and they told me that I am a unique case in the history of Spain, because I am in five complaints for economic crimes, and in none of them does anyone accuse me of having put my hand in the till. No one accuses me of having gotten rich, no one. They don't even investigate it, or if they have investigated it, they haven't found anything."
When asked about Real Madrid, he said: "All football clubs, not only in Spain, do refereeing reports. At Barca, that had been going on for a long time. When I arrived with Rosell, Javier Enriquez did the reports, and we thought it was correct, because it is something the club did regularly and was decided by the sporting area.
In the case of Madrid, for example, they have hired a former referee who is the husband of the woman who runs women's football refereeing, and she is also a refereeing reporter. Well, that seems fine to me as long as they act professionally and there is no, let's say, relationship beyond the marriage."
They also took the opportunity to question him about the causes of Barcelona's economic crisis, to which he commented the following: "Covid had affected Barca for more than €500 million. There really is a problem, but Barca is not ruined. That is part of the interesting narrative.
Barca needed management and new revenue. What is true is that Barca today still has not overcome that situation, and this is one of the handicaps the club currently has. Barca suffered from Covid, like most big clubs in Europe, and that meant that during those 18 months, it stopped earning around €500 million. This is a strong blow, and I'm not saying it; LaLiga's reports say it.
We, as a club, depend little on television rights, perhaps 25% of our revenue. The rest are other activities like the museum, football schools, stores, ticketing... and this fell steeply because of Covid."
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