“Everyone should take care of their own things,” said Laporta on Thursday in New York. He said the critical comments had something to do with “ignorance”, but also with concern about the renewed competition. “Barça is back!” Laporta insisted.
A week ago, Nagelsmann expressed his astonishment that the club, which has a debt of 1.35 billion euros, was able to strengthen this summer with expensive stars such as world footballer Robert Lewandowski, who had been ripped off by Bayern, or Brazilian Raphinha from Leeds United. “It’s not just Lewy, they buy a lot of players – I don’t know how. It’s the only club in the world that has no money but buys any player they want. It’s kind of weird, kind of crazy.”
“These gentlemen live in the past”
Laporta explained this without naming Nagelsmann: “It’s ignorance, a lack of information about our club.” The club boss admitted: “It is true that we were practically terminally ill, but thanks to financial leverage we left the hospital. These gentlemen (the critics) live in the past.”
Not only Nagelsmann, but also the Madrid media – which are close to arch-rival Real Madrid – had expressed criticism. Laporta suspects that the competition is afraid: “They probably do it because they believe that we will continue to be active in the market and have already overtaken them. Everyone should take care of their own things.”
The club spent over 100 million euros on Raphinha and Lewandowski alone. This is possible through a not uncontroversial sale of association assets. In the past few weeks, the Catalans have sold a total of 25 percent of the TV rights for 25 years to the investment company Sixth Street. More than 500 million euros are to flow for this. FC Barcelona also wants to cede a minority stake in Barca Licensing and Merchandising (BLM).
Source: Nachrichten
