Barcelona members approve sale of BLM and television rights

Barcelona members voted through the club’s two “financial levers” at an extraordinary assembly held at the club on Thursday.

The first ‘lever’ to authorize was the sale of a 49.9% stake in Barça Licensing & Merchandising which it’s hoped will bring in revenue of between €200m-€300m.

Members voted it through with 568 in favour, 65 against the sale and 13 people abstaining.

Barca will retain control of BLM as they are only selling 49.9% and reserve the option to buy it back in the future.

Television rights were next up for members to vote. Economic vice-president Eduard Romeo confirmed that the sale must happen before June 30th.

Meanwhile, Joan Laporta revealed Barca had already turned down a mega-bid, “We had an offer of €1 billion for 100% of the rights for 10 years. We said no.”

Once again authorization was given for 25% of the club’s TV rights from LaLiga for up to 25 years with 494 members in favor and just 62 against.

Barcelona also confirmed they believe they can earn around €500m for the television rights which added to BLM means a potential income boost of €700m.

The club will now be hoping they can carry out the two deals which could spark the club into life in the transfer market.

Barca want to sign Robert Lewandowski from Bayern Munich and could now decide to keep Frenkie de Jong amid interest from Manchester United.