Over the past few seasons, FC Barcelona have been grappling with the aftermath of severe mismanagement under the previous presidential tenures of Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sandro Rosell.
When Joan Laporta was elected president, there were high expectations that he would turn things around for the club. However, three years into his tenure, it’s difficult to say that Barcelona are significantly better off. Even this summer, the club continues to struggle with registering players.
Operational success off the field is just as crucial as sporting success on it, and recently, Barcelona has struggled in both areas. The club’s management has frequently been under scrutiny, with Claudio Bravo shedding some light on Barcelona’s operations.
The Chilean goalkeeper played for the Catalan club from 2014 to 2016. The 41-year-old has compared Barcelona’s operations to those of another former club of his, Manchester City, as quoted by SPORT. Here’s what Bravo had to say about Barcelona:
“I always say this: Barça operates like a small team. It’s gigantic on a global level, gigantic. Madrid and Barça must be the biggest in terms of media presence, in terms of popularity, the most well-known… Wherever you go in the world, they fill the stadiums.”
“Barça is gigantic, but internally it feels very small; you always see the same faces, just a few people: players, staff, three or four guards, the cook, and not much more.”
Whereas, when speaking about Manchester City, here is what Bravo had to say about how the defending English champions operate:
“On the other hand, you go to Manchester City and it’s a gigantic club internally, immense. Their level of resources is unlimited: people in the pool, people in the locker room, people in the medical area, people in the gyms…”
“There are more than enough people. They don’t skimp on resources or personnel to ensure that the players develop in the best possible way and lack absolutely nothing. You focus on playing, we have the best physio, the best gym trainer, and not just one, but two or three. In the medical area, they have twenty stretchers, not five. You have two or three doctors…”
“To be a big club, you need to operate like one. This is the essence of Bravo’s statement about Barcelona. However, the Catalan club has always prided itself on being different. There’s a reason for the tagline ‘Més que un club,’ though the club hasn’t fully lived up to it in recent seasons.
Barcelona has always operated differently from other big clubs like Real Madrid. For a long time, their immense sporting success made this approach a winning formula. However, with such success now harder to achieve, the club is facing scrutiny on all fronts.
What Barcelona need is a president who understands the club inside out. The jury is still out on Laporta with a few questionable decisions over the past few seasons. It remains to be seen how the club goes forward from here on, both on and off the pitch.
