Interview with marketing vice-president Ferrer

Barcelona marketing vice-president Jaume Ferrer gave an interview to Catalan sports paper Sport.





Let's cut the nonsense and get to the point. What's going on with TV3?
The conflict started from a debt from Audiovisual Sport from last season. And that's from the national audiovisual rights of Barça.

We're talking about TV3 and you mention Audiovisiual Sport.
The rights originally belonged to TV3 and these were given to Audiovisual Sport, of which TV3 owns 20% of its actions. TV3 is the main receiver of the revenue that Audiovisual Sport makes. All the damage done by Audiovisual Sport must be paid by TV3 fifteen days after the first.

And then came the day that they didn't pay...
It was April of last year when we told TV3 that Audiovisual Sport didn't pay. And as of today in February 2009, it hasn't been resolved.

How are you going to settle it?
They must pay. It's that simple. With money or any other method of pay. TV3 wants to make sure that this debt can be paid against Audiovisual Sport or a third party. And we don't want to get involved. We're only charging the 29 million and everything else, the interest, that they owe us.

The government of Catalonia has become involved...
It's obvious that they would. Barça and TV3 must work together, because they're two entities in this country that need to work as complements. However, there's a limits; we can't stop ourselves from charging money that's ours.

Barca is intolerant, they have to pay or there won't be footage...
We'll help with what TV3 can't do, but we won't dilate the charge under any circumstance. No arguments. If we don't charge them, we'll stop being competetive in relation to other clubs.

Does it have anything to do with the judicial decision that made Barca pay 60 million Sogecable?
Those are two different things. That's for Barça's international matches. That same sentence makes Telefonica pay us 30 million. That's why we're in more of a hurry to charge TV3.

Could the club have economical problems because of this?
It's a lot of money, without a doubt. They owe us since last year and that makes us do worse economically after the decision in favor of Sogecable. We need to find 30 million when there isn't even a need.

How will you pay the 30 million to Sogecable?
Nothing yet has been paid because the decision hasn't been executed. It'll definitely be during this month.

Change of subject. Is Barça feeling the economic crisis?
To ticket holders, ticket sales, sponsoring and television, no. However, it's true that during the Gamper match we found a problem. Where it is more noticeable is in the revenue from merchandising (shirt sales, etcetera), visits to the Camp Nou and the Museum...

And the near future?
We need to be on top of things because this can affect sponsors. We need to take care of future expenses and assure more income. Firms haven't left Barca. We have contracts that last many years and that makes us secure, because they are very powerful and consistent companies. We'll have to see how things are two or three years from now. We can't grow with such hurry as in past years because it'll be harder to find more sponsors.

Translated by: Al


This was the first part of this interview. You'll be able to read the second part in th coming days.