Revealed: Barcelona has been using loan money to pay players' salaries instead of building promised sports complex

Marc Ciria claims that the poor economic situation at the club isn't a result of the pandemic, it's just a result of mismanagement.

He claims that the current board are only concerned about fixing the numbers before they leave.

Bartomeu and the board promised to build Espai Barca, a sports complex to host the club's basketball, futsal and other teams.

"COVID-19 has nothing to do with Barcelona's economic situation. It is a lie from the board of directors, which claims that the club has a €700m debt. 

This is unpayable with the current mechanisms of the club," Marc Ciria, the economic adviser of former president Joan Laporta, has told EFE.

"The club is using the 30-year debt for Espai Barca, of which it is clearly inflating the final cost result, to pay the salaries for this year. The board needs to do this to fix the numbers before leave and they don't care about Espai Barca because they won't do it

"If I owe between €600m and €700m in the short-term and I have a budget of €700m, how do you hold up? It would be a miracle if there were €700m in revenue this year with the coronavirus pandemic."

As a reminder, the club took out a big loan to build Espai Barca, a sports complex that would host the games of the club's basketball, futsal, handball teams and others. However, it seems that the economic situation is so bad they have to use the money for other purposes.