Monje: "Despite Can Rigalt, we will close financial year in profit"

Susana Monje, the fifth vice-president of FC Barcelona, and responsible for the economic area of the club, has provided her take on the impact of the Can Rigalt case on the club's finances.

She maintained that: "Despite the arbitration award of Can Rigalt, we will close the 2015/16 financial year in profit."

Disappointed and angered by an arbitration resolution that she calls "unjust", the Barça director has told SPORT that "now, this board, is paying for the consequences of a poorly redacted contract from 2005, because it is not normal that the seller, FC Barcelona, and the buyer, the affiliate of 'La Llave de Oro', do not pact a date of delivery of an urban project, with all the complexities that implicitly carries with it."

Monje has also confirmed that the impact of annulling the deal, which obliges FC Barcelona to return 47 million euros (the price of sale plus 12 million euros in interest), will count towards the 2015/16 financial year.

She explained: "Without doubt, an event as relevant as this one should be consigned to those accounts as they are in the process of being audited and closed."

The vice-president continued: "We are studying all measures in respect of the arbitration resolution, such as the possibility to reform the accounts of season 2004/05, because there is an arbitor who says we need to undo a deal that dates from that time."

FC Barcelona have urgently arranged for an expert valuation of the grounds of Can Rigalt, of more than 10,000 square metres. When the club has the current value of the land, for accounting purposes, they will deduct it from the 47 million euros they have to return. This is because the club will again have ownership of that land to its name.

Along with this, the seven million euros that the club had provisioned to deal with the urbanisation of the grounds, as was stipulated as obligatory in the contract, will also be deducted.

The remaining sum will be the total that must be taken from the total surplus that was expected for the 2015/16 season, which club sources estimate would have been a historic record for Barça, had it not been for the unexpected Can Rigalt issue.