Athletic destroys its partners with a spill

Athletic de Bilbao is the first Spanish club that has decided to ask its members for money to alleviate the losses caused by Covid-19. The Basque club will put this issue on the table at the next assembly on October 23 with the aim of achieving 120 euros for each of the 43,425 partners that make up the entity.

Being a sports club and not a limited company, Athletic Club cannot receive external capital injections in exchange for team shares. The members, being the owners, are the ones who have to make sure that everything goes well and the club wishes with this initiative to achieve a total of 5.2 million euros to cover losses of 25.4 million during the past season due to the pandemic and the absence of public in the stadiums.

The Board of Directors chaired by Aitor Elizegi quantifies the losses of the club at 52 million euros from 2019-2020 and until 2021-2022, as long as there are no deviations. The red numbers of the last season -of 25.4 million- they were 18% higher than those foreseen by the entity and for this reason an extra effort is requested from the partners.

The club has noticed that this summer the transfer market has stopped having raised only three million euros, while in previous years those amounts it multiplied after transferring players like Kepa Arrizabalaga or Aymeric Laporte.

The Barça could follow in his footsteps

The Catalans have much bigger problems than the Bilbaoans and they could also choose to make a spill among their 140,798 partners. The club’s billionaire debt cannot be resolved with a spill like Athletic’s, but it could allow movements in future transfer markets.

Not in vain, opting for the same solution as the Basque club asking members for 120 million euros could bring them an extra 18 million of euros. Laporta has the ball on his court after this surprising move by Athletic.