With more than two years to go before he calls elections, the Catalan club already has an alternative proposal to the continuation option. A project under construction that has the face of Víctor Font, a Catalan businessman who intends to establish himself as the engine of change for an entity that anxiously seeks to increase its income, suffocated by a high level of spending.
In front of more than 600 people, Font began the debut of ‘Sí al futur’, his project for Barcelona in 2021, the year in which there will be presidential elections and for which Josep Maria Bartomeu, the current president, will not be able to appear due to exhausting the maximum mandates. His reformulation of Barcelona includes a mix of the modern and the traditional, with the introduction of sporting, economic and institutional profiles for a new Board of Directors.
The look to the future is aimed at developing Barcelona’s business model, which, although it marks maximum income, is diminished by expenses. In this sense, the businessman’s idea is to increase the financing channels (a headache for all soccer teams today) of the entity. The first of his master lines is to build a club-follower relationship, without intermediaries, in which to offer fans products (also audiovisual) that they can acquire, thus adding to the collection of economic resources.
One of his mantras to exemplify what his presidency wants to be is the phrase: “If we charged 5 euros each (of the followers) it would bring us an additional income of 2,000 million.”
On the sporting level, however, Font’s revolution is to return Barcelona to its origins, that is, to the supremacy of the quarry as a solution to a ‘post-Messi’ stage. There the figure of Xavi Hernández would enter the scene, whom he tries to seduce to integrate him into his project. The player, who is studying to be a coach, could have a relevant role, either on the bench or in sports management.
The idea is to resume the legacy of Johan Cruyff, and for this he wants to use people ‘of the house’, such as Xavi himself or other names, including Carles Puyol (present at the presentation ceremony), Víctor Valdés and even Pep Guardiola. A new football policy to cement the Barça DNA that has gone, in parallel with the aging of the club’s golden generation, diluting over the years.
Font’s plan isn’t exactly new. In 2015, before the elections were called, she ruled out his candidacy but announced that he would prepare one sufficiently prepared for the following elections. His intention, at that time, was to reflect on an “unconventional” and “transformation” model as a solution to the economic problems that the future would pose and as a sanitary cordon against a possible loss of ownership of the club by the partners.
If on that date he recognized that he did not have the necessary tools to do so, in June 2018 he already prepared the ground, taking the final step, hinting at a project presentation and revealing that he felt qualified to form “an innovative and ambitious project” that face “the replacement of the best generation of footballers in the history of the club and the challenge of economic competition with clubs owned by magnates and states”.
Font, who has declared himself an independentist, has been living in Dubai for several years, although he plans to move to Granollers in the coming months
Font’s trajectory can be explained hand in hand with that of Delta Partners Group, a conglomerate of which he is the founder and which diversifies its business between the technology, telecommunications and media sectors. In fact, in 2010 he was one of the co-founders of the Ara newspaper. These businesses have caused that, although he jokes assuring that he has lived the last years by plane, he established his residence in Dubai. However, he plans to return to his native Granollers.
Font’s idea is, once he has settled in Catalonia again, to definitively launch his project and explain it through the Catalan territory, a land to which he feels closely attached despite his years abroad.
In fact, the businessman declares himself (after a long time believing in the “fit of Catalonia in Spain”, as he stated in an interview with Cadena Ser this Thursday) pro-independence, although he clarifies that “Barça does not have to be a political tool “.
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