Hot Take: Barcagate Explained
What the hell is going on at FC Barcelona? Shireen Ahmed and Brenda Elsey explain the psychic pain of every Barca fan at this moment including, but not limited to, the arrest of the president, CEO and legal director of the club for money laundering, fraud and trolling their own players. This episode was produced by Tressa Versteeg. Shelby Weldon is our social media and website specialist. Burn It All Down is part of the Blue Wire podcast network.
Transcript
Shireen: Flamethrowers! Shireen here. ¡Hola! I’m here with my fav, Brenda Elsey, because we need to talk. We need to talk and not just have Twitter threads and WhatsApp messages – we need you to also be in on this conversation. Brenda, is this conversation about the disaster that is Barcelona Football Club’s finances? Is this conversation about the rampant corruption? Is this conversation about Barcagate? Is this conversation about this club needs to be held to account? What is this conversation, Brenda Elsey?
Brenda: Yeah, it is about the painful existence of every Barça fan right now. We can talk about on and off the pitch and either way it is a big thing.
Shireen: Can you tell us a little bit about, for those that don’t know…Football Club Barcelona boasts and has has boasted some of the arguably best players in the entire world including the one and only Messi, for whom Brenda’s cat is named. More importantly, I think, it’s important to understand the storied history of this club and where they are. They’re one of the most powerful influencers of football in the world. How did we get here? Why was former president Josep Bartomeu, why was he in jail, Brenda? What happened here?
Brenda: This is just so upsetting on so many levels, and before I begin I just wanna remind people, because Burn It All Down’s always interested in governance, that Barcelona is still a member-owned club. So, despite its contract with Qatar Airways [laughs] and everything that is typically corporate of global football, its actual structure is member-owned. There’s 140,000 members, they vote in the elections for the directorate. So, Josep Bartomeu is the current president who has just stepped down because he was arrested this past week with CEO Oscar Grau and Roman Gomez Ponti, who is the legal director for Barcelona. So, three people arrested basically for money-laundering and fraud. What they did is that they hired a third party company to basically troll and shape public opinion to have a negative impact on a rival campaign – Barcelona’s going through an election season right now – and to also attack some of its best players including the best player ever, Leo Messi. So, they actually hired a firm to make him look bad.
Shireen: Okay, so lemme get this straight: the former president of the club, legal director and their executive members hired a PR firm to make their own players look bad? Don’t get me wrong, there’s always room for criticizing Gerard Piqué – always, since I’ve been doing that for years, his defense kills me! Kills me! [Brenda laughs] However, conceptually, why would they think this was a good idea again?
Brenda: I imagine they believed that by making the players problems with the board and with themselves look like more of the players’ fault they would have a better chance in winning the election. Messi, until the last two years, was relatively silent about the rampant corruption and disorganization at Barça. We can talk about how that extends to the academy, arguably the best academy in the world, La Masia–
Shireen: Which he’s been at since he was 13 or 14, right?
Brenda: Right, right, and where so many footballers have come out of, in fact three Ballon d’Or’s in a row came out of…Because, what, Xavi’s there?
Shireen: Xavi was there.
Brenda: Messi was there. Who’s the other one? Somebody else great.
Shireen: Must be Cruyff.
Brenda: Yeah. [laughs]
Shireen: No, but he was in at La Masia.
Brenda: Yeah. But I mean, it was like three in a row. There’s been many others. But basically what I can gather is they also used this PR firm to discredit their opponents in the election. So, it’s probably motivated by Bartomeu trying to stay in power despite Barcelona’s collapse off and on the field, and the on the field part is just…Holy shit, you know? And yeah, to have Shireen and I defend Piqué is something really strange. We only think he should be allowed to exist in the public eye because of A) marginally okay politics when it comes to Barcelona and its relationship with Spain, and B) Shakira.
Shireen: Yeah. Only reason why, actually. Also, as somebody who has loved and who has really been able to soak up the joy of Barcelona within the last decade, you know, even post-Puyol, when he retired…But just Xavi, Iniesta…And Iniesta I love. I always say this that some girls want happily ever after; I just want a pass like Iniesta. He’s just a magician. He was just a magician and a playmaker. I mean, when you think about some of the most beautiful…Ronaldinho’s played there, just he magic and the beauty and the passion that comes out of football there – Neymar and Dani Alves together, who I always envisioned as me and Brenda celebrating, you know, after a goal.
Brenda: Yes!
Shireen: And this Barcagate comes just a couple months after the end of January this year when a Spanish newspaper claimed that Barça is on the verge of “bankruptcy” and reported a $117 million loss, failed to pay players. You know, it makes you think that if a club of this magnitude is going through this, what’s happening with the other clubs? But the corruption and the mismanagement notwithstanding there’s a lot here, and I just wanna shoutout those who have been Culés forever, who have been supporters of Barça, and this is really painful to watch. I’m not joking. I’m also an Arsenal supporter, I don’t know why I do this. But watching Barça was a place of seamless joy for me fr a very long time. I could be guaranteed tiki-taka style passing, integral forward dynamic playmaking, and it's just ringing hollow, and it’s sad. Solidarity and I commiserate with other football fans out there that are seeing this demise, because Brenda, it’s hard. What do we do now as fans? Where do we go now?
Brenda: I don’t know how to pick myself up, in the last 3 years, football-istically. I mean, I tried during the beginnings of COVID to look at the Bundesliga and I tried to be really open to that and there's a lot of good stuff going on there and politically it did a better job. So, I tried to throw myself into that.
Shireen: Yeah, that was a good effort. [laughs]
Brenda: It was, it was. And of course there’s always women’s football.
Shireen: Yes, yes.
Brenda: Except it's canceled more often because of COVID because they're not a priority. But the Liga Mexicana Femenil and some other things…But to be honest with you, I have no replacement in my life. I’ve been running more, more short-tempered in genera. It’s affected almost every facet of my being because I used to feel like I wanted to watch these matches and honestly today they're gonna play at 3. How are they gonna play at 3 knowing the club hired people to make them look bad? It’s bad enough that they super screwed over Messi in terms of being able to leave and did this stupid clause that they fired able coaches to get whatever the hell they have now, which I can't even…It’s just like, Shireen and I were watching them the other week and we were just texting back and forth and Shireen said something like, “Is there a formation here?” [Shireen laughs] “Is there a rough idea?”
And basically I feel like they're just sitting around with pickup sticks and just throwing them and being like, okay, here’s where we're gonna put this and that. You know, it's just such a waste of talent, so frustratingly treated. I know we also have feeling about Luis Suárez, and that's fine. But trust me, they didn't treat Luis Suárez like shit because they have problems with his racism. So, it’s a general…It’s a disaster. I think that it shows on the pitch. They don’t look excited because they don't look happy. Of course the fans have a particular role to play in a club like Barcelona, and so that I think also compounds everything.
Shireen: I mean, I really like what you said about it. It’s very chaotic on the pitch, and one of the things that I have always sought solace in is the fact that they have a very particular style of play, a particular style of playmaking that we could rely on. So, now it’s like that chaotic energy doesn’t work for them. They don't function…I mean, don't get me wrong – just last week, I can’t even remember who they were playing…It was Sevilla, and then Messi scored off the keeper in the last couple of seconds and for a minute there was that beautiful joy again on his face, because that man looks depleted! He looks depleted emotionally, he looks depleted.
Brenda: Oh yeah.
Shireen: Like, he’s just not getting the support, and he deserves better than this, just so far better. This club is disastrous in the way that it’s done things. For those of you that don’t know, historically – and I blogged about this years ago – Barcelona one time was more of a powerhouse and actually dabbled into peacemaking. Do you remember this? When they did peacemaking and they sent Leo Messi on a tour of the Middle East [Brenda laughs] to go fix everything between the state of Israel and the occupied territories of Palestine. It was a disaster! I’m like, what are they doing? Barcelona clearly can't even keep its own house finances in order and they’re going…This was such a mess.
At the time, as Brenda alluded to, Messi was a lot quieter. He’s become more vocal, which is still not very vocal, he’s still not, like…But okay, for different reasons, like I remember it took Zizou decades to say anything about anything. It took a fascist trying to get power in France for him to actually say anything publicly. So, people come in their own time. However, the stress that Messi is under just must be harrowing to even think about. How do they continue? Like, they’re gonna play today – how is this gonna happen?
Brenda: Yeah, I have no idea how they pick themselves up and go and represent a club that embezzled money in order to be able to pay for their defamation. Not only did they pay an outside firm to publicly try to humiliate and harass their players, but they did so with money that they invented. [Shireen laughs] Whaaaat!?
Shireen: Yeah, I think there’s a lot to be said about moving forward and I feel like they’re just stuck in mud and that there’s a lack of vision here. I don’t trust the coaching–
Brenda: Oh, no. Oh no. Why was Griezmann on the bench last week? Why did Griezmann spend…What is the point of taking him off in these weird ass ways? Like, just to mess with him psychologically? He's already fragile there.
Shireen: I think maybe reserving him for Champs League…No, I don't even know. They’re out of the Champs League, what am I talking about? I don't even know. Reserving him for different streams of competition? I don't know. Clearly there’s no pattern here. Dembélé’s back, but what does that even mean? And we want moments of joy. I just think one of the things I’m gonna say is I felt constantly let down by this team, like consistently let down. The only thing they’ve managed to achieve in the last couple years has been just disappointment.
Brenda: Yeah. The time that it seems like it works is the occasional slap the Messi cape on and do something superhuman and then it's like, “Oh, our club is back!” and it’s like, no it's not. You’re hanging on the coattails of this one beleaguered person. And Griezmann’s had some really wonderful, like, it seems like he was just getting into his groove before they started leaving him on the bench, and in weird random times. So, I have no idea. He’s obviously had some trouble adjusting. I feel like he did better when Suárez was out because he played a little bit more in a top position, you know, he was up on top more. I felt like even though he’s coming at it from wings he’s comfortable being closer than…I think Suárez kind of scared him away from that side. [laughs]
Shireen: I mean, possibly. I keep thinking, “What will it look like in two years?” I mean, forget 2-5 years – what is it gonna look like next month? Brenda and I talk a lot about the technical aspect of this game and what Barça looks like in the back where clearly–
Brenda: My god!
Shireen: Ter Stegen is actually starting for Germany, but I feel like he's alone out there. I actually do not know what the back is doing. I’m a forward, I haven’t played soccer in almost a year because of the pandemic, but I know a terrible defensive strategy when I see one. The worst strategy is not to have a strategy, and I think that’s actually what they're implementing at the moment because I cannot for the life of me figure it out. There’s a way–
Brenda: [laughs] Sometimes I look at old clips of van Dijk and I just get misty, like, if that person could just come and play for Barça and show them what proper defense looks like.
Shireen: But it’s almost like even if you had Puyol back, even if you had van Dijk back, even if you had all the legends back, the club is not the same. It's literally gotten to a point where it’s so badly rotten from the core that it’s affecting everything else around it, because we know that sometimes trees that are rotted at root level still produce fruit, but not this. Did you like that vegetable/fruit metaphor? Did you like that?
Brenda: Yeah, yeah. I really liked that. That was fruity. [Shireen laughs] That was fresh.
Shireen: That's fresh. [laughs]
Brenda: Unlike Barcelona’s defense. [laughter]
Shireen: Neither fruity nor fresh!
Brenda: Nor natural. It’s a counter-intuitive coaching. You may say to yourself, “I think this might be best,” and then it’s like George Costanza in Seinfeld where he thinks of a good plan. Maybe this is what he’s doing, and then he says to himself, “I’m gonna do the opposite of what I think is a good plan,” and I think maybe that’s what we're seeing. I mean, pay Pep Guardiola all the money in the world to come back, please! Or Messi.
Shireen: They can’t afford Pep at this point.
Brenda: Then Messi has to go and play for him, because this is just unconscionable. I just can’t take it.
Shireen: Yeah, I mean, I have so many issues with Pep. Brenda and I have talked about his racist apologia and everything else, but Messi is not shining. Is football truly a happy place when Messi is not shining? I mean, we have to reexamine all of it, right?
Brenda: He’s finally making a good go and could play for Bielsa, you know, Marcelo Bielsa, who went from Newell’s Old Boys just to do something spirited like do something successful or do something political but get the hell out of there, because I think that place…You know what we need to do, Shireen? We need to burn it all down.
Shireen: We need to burn all of it down, you heard it here friends! I think, Brenda, you should be hired by Barça. [Brenda laughs] Because of course they would love all of your suggestions, and I love how at the beginning of this segment Brenda was like, “You know we really care about governance.” I can’t handle…The only one who really understands governance in football is you.
Brenda: [laughs] It’s just so boring.
Shireen: I know. I'm here for your comments and the suggestions and everything else, but also I think one of the things that concerns me about this is that we hold these places – and people love and worship Barça like a religion! There needs to be an accountability piece. And Brenda, speaking about governance, where is that accountability piece? Are their books transparent? Are they making statements to the public? Because it’s a member-owned club, that's why it's més que un club, right? It’s more than a club. That’s literally the motto of Barcelona. I think the understanding of you’re letting down community, you’re letting down your people, you’re letting everything down, that's what hurts the most here for me.
Brenda: Yeah. I mean, obviously their books are cooked and that’s why they went to jail and the federation and the league, La Liga, will have to deal with that, hopefully for a long time. But Barcelona also has extraordinary power, so you wonder to yourself how much the league is actually gonna be able to punish and discipline them in the way that they should. But they should because it’s doing a disservice to its legacy as a member-owned club. It’s doing a disservice to fans and the people who work for it and, you know, it's criminal.
Shireen: There you have it, folks. It’s criminal. You can't say anything more than that. Thank you so much to Dr. Brenda Elsey, my favorite Culé. [Brenda laughs]
Brenda: Thank you, Shireen. That means a lot.
Shireen: And to everybody else out there, we offer our love and solidarity in this wretched time of football for Barcelona.