Is FC Barcelona leaving Catalonia?
These are strange times at FC Barcelona. The club, always closely linked in sports to the Netherlands, will also be linked to the country economically in the coming weeks.
As reported by El País, club president Joan Laporta wants Barça Media, the club's already famous content subsidiary, to be listed on Wall Street.
To achieve this, Joan Laporta plans to establish the headquarters of Barça Media in the Netherlands, leaving a branch in Barcelona from which the bulk of the business would be managed.
The operation is already so advanced that, according to the aforementioned media, the club has already sent the necessary documentation to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
According to El País, the move to Wall Street would be done through a SPAC, under an agreement with Mountain & Co. I Acquisition Corp, a firm already listed on the Nasdaq.
Joan Laporta's objective is for both Barça Media and Barça Visión to have access to North American capital to be able to finance future projects linked to the digital sector.
This movement seeks the necessary capital to bring Barça Media content to new strategic markets around the planet.
The club has estimated that Barça Media and Barça Vision have a valuation of 1 billion dollars, and they understand this source of income as key to the club's immediate future.
Of course, in the documentation presented to the SEC, they link the success of this operation to the club's sporting successes, as well as to the brand image of FC Barcelona.
To make the operation viable and accelerate, the club has brought in Libero Football Finance (Germany) and Nipa Capital BV (Netherlands) into Barça Vision.
The injection of capital from these two new members will allow the club to register the players they were missing and, incidentally, assume the "knowledge and experience" provided by their new members, as the club points out in the statement that the operation has been made official.