Xavier Budó: 'We have to generate more income to remain competitive'

Xavier Budó: 'We have to generate more income to remain competitive'

The Sports Director supports "streamlining expenditure" for each team and outlines the creation of the new Centre for Sporting Excellence

Sports Director, Xavier Budó, appeared on Barça TV at lunchtime today and provided details on the latest developments regarding the Club's professional sports teams, while also outlining how the Club has planned to use its resources. “Every Club team has to become more sustainable. There are two ways to do this, either reduce expenditure, which would make us less competitive, or increase our income".

He continued by explaining that “we are going to create our own structures to generate a lot more income, which will give us a significant margin to remain competitive". "In terms of expenditure, we will simply streamline spending by managing contracts or operating costs as required”, he stated to Barça TV.

"La Masía is absolutely vital"

He continued by outlining the Club's sporting model. “We want to reinforce Barça's identity, conserve our sporting identity. What does this mean? That La Masía is absolutely vital. Not just for football, but for other sports too. We want an increasing percentage of sportspeople in each team to be Club-trained”. "We are aiming high for a very significant proportion of sportspersons to be trained here", he concluded.

The Centre for Sporting Excellence, a long-term project

The Professional Sports Director also outlined details about the Centre for Sporting Excellence, an “innovative project” that has been in the making for a year now. Xavier Budó confirmed that this Centre will ensure "all sportspersons can achieve their sporting and personal development more quickly", as each athlete "will have a personalised programme that will include both the technical and tactical aspects that define the Barça style, along with physical work, mentorship for mental development, and data analysis to enable them to perform at their very best”.

According to Budó, there are four founding principles to the project - the character of the sportsperson, how they train, their lifestyle, and their circle. "We will work on what they do at the Club and monitor everything that they do". In this sense, Budó explained that the Centre of Excellence is based on twelve areas of performance involving every aspect affecting the sportsperson, and the professionals in each of these areas will dump the data, share the information, and collaborate so they can achieve their best possible performance.

As Budó explained, the Centre of Excellence will ensure the sportsperson trains and prepares, while also understanding their character, how they deal with pressure, their family situation, and also collaborating with families so the sportsperson has comprehensive support.

Lastly, Budó highlighted the importance of each team becoming sustainable. He mentioned the basketball and women's football teams as examples, both of which saw their income rocket up last season. For example, the basketball team saw a 52% rise in income from ticketing, with tickets sold out for 40% of the games in the Palau.

The women's football team saw a 106% rise in income for the 2021/22 season, with a 300% increase in attendance for their home games. Let's not forget that last season saw the world record attendance for a women's football match broken twice in the Spotify Camp Nou against Real Madrid and Wolfsburg.

 

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