Tag: corruption

On 7 March 2021, if the members do not do anything strange, ten infamous years of looting at FC Barcelona will come to an end. The culture of looting, installed in the Club for the past decade, came from feelins of resentment and revenge. We have had 10 years of nepotism and corruption, which continues until 2021. There are numerous ‘executives’ who have gone through different positions at the Club, without professional skills and just because they were friends or associates of Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu. Their influence at the Club have continued long after their respective resignations. And their associates, as is easily proven these days, have continued to use the Club to satisfy their own interests.

Let’s take a quick look of who these people are:

1- Joan Carles Raventós: From Rosell’s partner at Bonus Sports Marketing to Barça’s section director. Mr. Raventós went from failure to failure within the Club, being relocated several times as a senior executive. He is currently the general manager of Barça Licensing & Merchandasing, a subsidiary created to manage the retail business. You can read more about his connection with Rosell in this link, as well as how he appointed other associates as Barça executives in 2010.

And here you can read a more detailed profile on Mr. Raventós.

2– Lauren Collette: From strategic consultant for Bonus Sports Marketing with Rosell, to Barça’s director of marketing. For 5 years he earned a big salary from the Club. He went on to sign for Roma in 2015. You can find more information about him here.

3- Emili Rossich: “Rossichi, for friends”. He met Sandro Rosell at the the Olympic Committee for the 1992 Games. He was the CEO of FC Barcelona for four years. He was fired by Bartomeu after receiving a hefty compensation of 3M €.

4- Carles Rexach + Migueli + Josep Maria Fusté: They gave Rosell their support when he presented to the elections in 2010, and were rewarded named advisors, with a monthly salary of 6000 euros. Their work was attending to VIP boxes at Barca games. 6,000 x 12 x 3 x 10 = 2,160,000 euros is the cost of there 3 advisors at FC Barcelona for 10 years.

5- Andre Cury: Rosell’s friend from his Nike Brasil era. After passing through Traffic (a Brazilian company that sells players with the respective commissions), he entered Barça through the back door when they signed Neymar. One of the most obscure people in the collection of Rosell’s associates, he has been involved in the numerous signings from Brazil FC Barcelona has made, for both first squad and the B team. The biggest scandal he was involved and benefited from, was the contract signed by Rosell in which Cury would get a 3% of commission on the future sale of Neymar. All said and done, Neymar was sold to PSG and Andre Cury got a nice 6 million €. We are not talking about peanuts here.  Here you can read more about that operation.

6- Pere Jansà: Friend of Rosell and head of communication strategy during his 2010 election campaign, he joined FC Barcelona as director of communications, when Sandro won the elections. However, he did not last a year in office, he was quickly relocated to the social area, where he continues in office today with a high salary. He is in charge of mail-in vote for the current elections, as we explained here.

7- Ketty Calatayud: She arrived from newspaper La Vanguardia, to replace Pere Jansà. She turned out to be another notorious failure, with a high executive salary she lasted a little over a year in office. She is still relocated within the Club today, we don’t know exactly what she’s doing at the moment, but she’s probably very well paid.

8- Gerard Guiu: A friend of Rosell, Jaume Collboni and Spanish TV presenter Risto Mejide, he joined president Rosell as chief of staff in 2011. After holding various positions at the Club, he ended up leading the FCB headquarters in New York. He left through the back door at the end of 2017, after  6 years of generous salary.

9- Emili Sabadell: Just like Antoni Rossich, he met Rosell at the COO for Barcelona 92. He was the one who personally fired one of the legends of Barça’s dressing room,  Txema Corbella. He left Barça in 2015 to one of Rosell’s companies, Grifone..

10- Juanjo “Cabeçao” Castillo: Close friend of Sandro Rosell, he went from doing a little bit of everything at BSM, to a little bit of everything at Barça’s presidency. To this day, we do not know if he is still working in the Club, after he starred the unfortunate incident with the alleged purchase of Abidal’s liver (his voice was recorded by Spanish police, saying that the liver was bought by Club’s officials) lamentable incident amb la presumpta compra del fetge d’Abidal.

11- Shahe Ohannessian: Friend of Sandro from ESADE glorious college days, he is also the godfather of Rosell’s daughter. Rosell sold his BSM company to him. Ohannessian worked for Barça in order to, allegedly, find sponsors in Africa.

12- Robert Cama: The shadow of Joan Carles Raventós, he was fired from Mediapro for hacking Jaume Roures’email. Surprisingly, Barcelona hired him when he lost his job.

13- Jordi Jacas: A well known chef, owner of the hotel restaurant Molí de l’Escala and friend of Rosell. The board of FC Barcelona went to “summer camps” in early 2012 to his hotel, to prepare the real estate looting, or what it will be known as “Espai Barça”. A few months later, the catering of the stadium VIP boxes was awarded to him. Being Rosell’s friend certainly pays off.

14- Albert Soler: He joined the club with Bartomeu in 2014. He has been a disaster everywhere in the Club where he has been located. He resigned in 2017, and was relocated while retaining senior executive salaries. Another obscure character and very close to Catalan Civil Society (an unionist, far right political entity). Coincidentally or not, the  #BartoGate investigation has put under suspicion that the club might have financed Catalan Civil Society.

15- Jaume Masferrer + Jaume Montané: Jaume Masferrer known by his friend Rosell as “Masfe”,  he had his company located in Rosell’s private address for a period of time. He began ‘working’ for FC Barcelona being in charge of the polling structure known as “Observatori Blaugrana”. Masferrer and his close collaborator Jaume Montané, owner of Time Consultant company, were the ones who ran the polling structure. Masferrer was of great importance with Bartomeu as president, becoming his right hand man and the main pyromaniac master executor of the #BartoGate scandal.

16- Román Gómez Ponti: One of Bartomeu’s people of trust, he also took part in  ‘back stage’, in the demands against Laporta on behalf of the Association for Defense of Member’s Rights, an organization led by Robert Blanch and Vicenç Pla (which, obviously, served obscure interests, and never represented any Barça member). Gomez Ponti joined the club in 2015. His hatred of Cruyffism, Guardiola and Laporta is well documented in his Twitter profile. He filed a complaint to the Guardia Civil, with the only purpose of stopping the vote of no confidence against Bartomeu on october 2020.

17- Joan Manel Trayter: He collaborated with the Association for Defense of Member’s Rights, led by Robert Blanch. In April 2014, he was appointed as Síndic del Soci by Bartomeu’s board. Which means he was the member’s representative to the Club. That didn’t went well.

18- Pau Vilanova: A close friend of Rosell, when Sandro resigned he was the board member who replaced him. His company is located at Rosell’s personal address.

19- David Bellver: Close friend and partner of Rosell. He was appointed as a board member when Jordi Mestre resigned. His company is the organizer of the MIC tournament, where different teams from the Aspire academy from Qatar, have participated. He is considered one of Sandro’s ringleaders on the hidden recreational yacht under the name of Jack Sparrow.

Long story short, the duo Sandro & Barto, Barto & Sandro, believed that Barça was their private property. They did anything they wanted with impunity and no remorse, helped by the silence of the submissive and friendly media. Thanks to the few exceptions of honest media and also a lot of Barça members, some of their wrongdoing have come to light. We only know a small part of what they have done to the Club. They came in 2010 shouting to the members “I will not fail you!”, but they seem to change that for a more suitable statement: “I will f*** you all!”. Hopefully their years will end now.