Mundo Deportivo reported that Barcelona was facing exclusion from the Champions League this season, had it not been for a clever political move by Catalan club president Joan Laporta at the last minute.
Laporta met with Barcelona’s General Assembly on Sunday morning and discussed various topics, most notably Financial Fair Play regulations and the club’s stifling economic crisis over the past five years.
Laporta clearly revealed that Barcelona was on the verge of exclusion from the Champions League, and that he was the cause of it, having manipulated UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations, a fact that UEFA had already discovered.
As a result, Barcelona was supposed to be subjected to a very severe penalty, which would have included a ban from the Champions League for more than a year. However, Laporta went to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin himself and negotiated a reduction in the penalty. UEFA ultimately settled for a fine and a warning that next time, it would impose more severe penalties.
Ultimately, Laporta was forced to make concessions to gain Ceferin’s approval and support within UEFA. This meant completely abandoning the idea of a European Super League and leaving Real Madrid alone to face the storm.
Laporta had previously asserted that the European Super League project was Barcelona’s last chance to achieve financial sustainability. His sudden departure from the party with Real Madrid raised many questions, but the answer finally came with his revelation of Barça’s violations, implicitly stating that abandoning Madrid and siding with UEFA was the only solution to save what could be saved.
