Suspicion continues to grow over €100m sale of VIP seats made by Barcelona

Barcelona once again left it to the last minute in order to secure the money needed to register Dani Olmo and Pau Victor, making a late asset sale in December – albeit La Liga have disputed the origin and timing of that money. Suspicions continue to grow over the deal though.

The Blaugrana, who have not formally announced the names of the buyers, sold 475 VIP seats at the renovated Camp Nou (when it opens) to the tune of €100m for a 30-year lease. One of the businesses that has been revealed is Forta Advisors, a company with just two employees with a registered headquarters in London and Qatar.

The other has been revealed to be New Era Visionary Group (NEVG), as reported earlier this week, from the United Arab Emirates, and more concretely, Dubai. They were responsible for the €28m that arrived ‘late’ in La Liga’s eyes, but suspicion continues to grow over the origin of those funds.

Barcelona awarded NEVG a telecommunications contract for the new Camp Nou in partnership with Orange, despite competition from two market leaders in Cellnex and Telefonica. NEVG is directed by former Moldovian politician Ruslan Birladeanu, who has previously been convicted for real estate fraud to the tune of millions, leading to his resignation as Vice-President of the Social Democratic party there.

That is reported Catalunya Radio, who go on to say that NEVG have their headquarters in Dubai at a co-working space, and their office in Barcelona is registered to a private property by Francisco Maza, with capital amounting to just €3k. That is despite their website declaring themselves as a ‘world leader’ in the industry.

Meanwhile RAC1 also add details to the picture. Their information is that Telefonica presented a full project for an ‘intelligent stadium’ for Camp Nou, but that no tender process was undertaken, and neither did the agreement with NEVG pass through the commercial department at the club, something that is abnormal for such deals. It is also noted that Birladeanu has links to former player and convicted rapist Dani Alves.

For their part, Barcelona have maintained that the process was carried out completely legally, and that there are no irregularities in the contract. La Liga’s suspicion is that this could follow a similar pattern to the Barca Vision sales, where the value of the company was over-inflated, and the Blaugrana at no point received the full value of contract they had claimed.

This could have consequences for Dani Olmo and Pau Victor, registered under a Ministry for Sport injunction on the basis of those contracts. If La Liga and the RFEF, who have opposed the registration, can cast sufficient doubt on the verity of those contracts, then it may lead to the licences for Olmo and Victor being revoked, and ruling them out for the rest of the season. It could also have a major impact on the salary limit of Barcelona.