Philosofooty

Més Que Un Debt?

By Eric Beard, writing from Boston

According to the BBC, Barcelona’s debt is 442 million euros (£369.5m) after a loss of more than 77m euros (£64.36m) last season. The club’s costs in the 2009-10 season rose to £400m, with their income at £341.7m.

Operating costs of £400m? To run a football club? As they say, Barcelona is Més Que Un Club, or more than club. But even so, this appears to be more than your average debt.

So what spurs Barça on to spend such lavish amounts of money? Is it pride? Desire? Glory? Or is it something far less enviable?

It is certainly understandable for a football club to want to be successful, but perhaps the Catalan club simply has a bad case of pleonexia. Pleonexia is, roughly, defined as “the desire to have more.” The desire for self-improvement is an admirable one, but what happens when you desire more when you already have everything?

Anyone who has read a bit of Socrates knows the symptoms of pleonexia based on the character Thrasymachus in Plato’s Republic. How do I sum Thrasymachus up in one sentence? Well, he is a man who lives by the notion that “justice is to the advantage of the stronger”, and in accordance with this he lives without any sort of moderation, and hence without satisfaction. His philosophy in short: if there’s something to be taken, you better take it before someone else does. And then be sure to take the next thing…

Now, Barcelona may not be Thrasymachus per se, as I think Manchester City is more than suited to fit that role, but there is something clearly wrong with the structure of the club. Under Pep Guardiola, the Blaugrana won six legitimate trophies in a year. Some Spanish clubs haven’t even done that in their entire history.

Lionel Messi, celebrating Barça winning the treble, said, albeit drunkenly, to a filled Camp Nou that his side would win everything again next year.

Now I’m not arguably best player in the world, but if I just won the Champions League I’m going to celebrate winning the Champions League for a little while. If everyone recognises you to be the best team in the world, why not be satisfied with that achievement? Well, I have two explanations. One negative and one positive.

The first is negative. Barcelona will not be satisfied until they win as many La Liga titles and Champions League trophies at Real Madrid. They won’t see themselves as the best until they are the best historically. This, of course, is a task too tall for any individual professional to handle. Every title brings you one step closer, but even if you do win 10 titles, what’s next? It’s not an idealistic feeling of glory and achievement is it? No, it’s the end of your career.

The second explanation is that Pep Guardiola and this Barcelona squad is trying to create the best brand of football the world has ever seen. Are they succeeding? Well, in my opinion, yes. But not sustainably so. The Zlatan Ibrahimovic signing is the clearest example of trying to fix something that isn’t broken. In this particular case, Barcelona were trying to fix something that was already seemingly perfect.

There’s the argument that you should always set goals for yourself and try to progress, but what happens when you should be able to actually realise that you have reached your potential? Celebration should be in store. Live for the moment. And more importantly, acknowledge that things may not be this perfect forever.

The pursuit for Cesc Fabregas only outlines another distortion from reality. To Barça, Fabregas has become a symbol for success in the future, attempting to preserve the present success had by the club for years to come. He is a lost son, someone who will “save” the club.

However, in reality, the only thing at the moment Barcelona need to be saved from is debt. Everything else at the club, in terms of football, runs with unparalleled success. But this lack of prioritisation by Barça is not surprising. Not at all. After all, when flooded with the desire to want more and more, can you really expect the club to function properly?

Barcelona’s debt, on the surface, is only hundreds of millions of euros, but is it deeper than that?