Barcelona Sporting Club in trouble with FIFA debt

Paying $ 1,104,800 plus an annual interest of 5% ($ 55,240 per year), in 45 days, imposed by FIFA, has put the Barcelona Sporting Club directors in trouble, as they must gather that money in the delicate financial moment that the country is going through due to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). A debt that was generated during the period in charge of José Francisco Cevallos, who could not cover it due to the demands left by the Eduardo Maruri and Antonio Noboa boards.

The former executive of the canaries explained that with Nahuelpán, who only scored 13 goals in 60 games between 2017 and 2018, an agreement was reached and a settlement was signed. "We proposed a payment formula in which we planned to receive some amounts to finance those payments, which became complicated because four FIFA demands emerged," he explained.

"That's when the issue of Godoy Cruz ($ 380,000), Unión de Santa Fe ($ 475,000), Franzoia ($ 810,000), and Brahian Alemán ($ 441,000) emerged (all from Antonio Noboa's stage), which put us against the wall: either you pay or you lose points and the category. So we decided to fulfill the most urgent. The decision was that we had to comply with what we had here, which in total comes close to $ 2,000,000," he continued during a dialogue with La Radio Redonda. Cevallos stated that "at the moment we stopped making important payments, we made them, but they were not significant enough to meet the amounts on the specified dates. Nahuelpán's lawyers told us: 'Pay or we'll take this to court.'"

He also recalled that during his management in the yellow team, debts were paid to the forward Rolando Zárate, Spanish coach Benito Floro (both with a value over $ 2,000,000, left over from the Eduardo Maruri era); and Boca Juniors and others.

"We left a couple of our debts for the issue of paying the previous ones. If we had focused on our management, we would have come out in the black and not in the red as some say. The agreement could not be fulfilled at the time, but they could have avoided it by making important payments. They have had income from the Libertadores, but in BSC, everything is urgent," he concluded. (D)