Barcelona's reputation is in ruins: Lever-pulling Joan Laporta should be forced to resign as president over embarrassing registration row

When he went on the campaign trail back in 2021, Laporta vowed to go back to basics after years of reckless excess. He told GOAL that the key principles of his second spell as president would be the same as the first: "Johan Cruyff, La Masia, Catalunya, UNICEF and a professional organisation." And yet the Laporta administration has been made to look, at best, embarrassingly amateurish, and, at worst, downright deceitful.

The net result is that five years after being left on the verge of bankruptcy by Bartomeu, Barca remain synonymous with disastrous decision-making and utterly unnecessary signings.

Olmo is, of course, a fine forward, and a very versatile one at that, but Barca definitely didn't need him. There were other holes to fill in Hansi Flick's squad and the priority was obviously a left winger, namely Nico Williams. Signing Olmo, then, looked like an expensive act of pure desperation, an attempt to appease the club's frustrated fans by bringing back one of their own.

Cost clearly didn't come into the equation. The only thing they wanted to do was get a major deal over the line; they could - and indeed would - worry about spending restrictions and financial regulations later.

In fairness, there was a widely held presumption that Barcelona would somehow balance the books. Even La Liga president Javier Tebas pointed out, "In the end, they always manage to register players."

Laporta, like life, finds a way - whether it's by pulling economic levers or exploiting Liga loopholes. However, Barca were so preoccupied with whether or not they could sign Olmo, they didn't stop to think if they should. They just went out and did it without considering the consequences. In that sense, it was an act of astounding arrogance, one that rather sums up Barca's staggering sense of entitlement.

Laporta has certainly always pushed the idea that the club is too big to fail. He vowed to "reverse" the dire financial situation at Camp Nou and was supremely confident of doing so simply because "we are Barca". But Barca is no longer what it once was - or, at least, what it was meant to be. FC Barcelona is only more than a club in the sense that it is now also a brand, an expression of capitalism rather than Catalunya.

At Camp Nou these days, everything is for sale, from corporate boxes to core values. And all for knockdown prices.

Laporta has justifiably argued that he was dealt a terrible hand by Bartomeu, but that doesn't excuse his decision to continue raising the stakes by essentially betting future profits on present-day success. Barca spent their way into trouble, so why are they still trying to spend their way out of it?

The Catalans had a €100 million (£83m/$104m) hole in their accounts last summer and they nonetheless decided to fork out an additional €55m (£46m/$57m) for Olmo - it made no sense. Did nobody at the club argue that maybe the simplest solution to their financial problem might also be the most effective: stop signing players they can't afford and work with the products of the most prestigious academy in world football?

The many Barca-focused social media accounts out there might lead one to believe otherwise, but not all Blaugrana fans are fools, mindlessly lapping up the misinformation the club has been feeding them on a daily basis. The majority are painfully aware that Barcelona's status as one of the game's great institutions has been completely undermined by the gross mismanagement that has resulted in a "vicious cycle" of instability and jeopardised the very existence of the club. Consequently, they rightly want Laporta out.

"The situation created is inadmissible, and the damage caused to the reputation of the entity is irreparable," fan group Som un Clam said in a statement. "The bad image is aggravated by the continuous lies and the deception of members with false promises that are never fulfilled and that end up harming the club.

"In just four years, FC Barcelona's assets have been decapitalised with various 'levers', wrongly selling strategic assets for the future to cover holes derived from chaotic and improvised management. Despite promises of recovery, the club still lacks a solid financial plan or a coherent strategy to ensure stability in the medium and long term...

"We demand an end to the unfulfilled promises, constant improvisation and irresponsible sale of assets that are mortgaging the model of collective ownership that makes us unique. A change of course is urgent. It is necessary to recover the transparency, planning and values that have made Barca 'more than a club'."

Laporta won't go without a fight, of course. His willingness to take the registration row to court (after court) shows just how desperate he is to cling onto power. But if he is eventually forced to step down, he can have no complaints (even though Laporta being Laporta, he definitely would!). He may have inherited someone else's mess, but he's failed miserably to clean it up.

It's such a shame, too, because if Laporta had stuck to his principles, if he kept his word and made La Masia the foundation of the new project, he could have not only avoided the horribly undignified and detrimental predicament the club presently finds itself in, but also assembled a squad the supporters would have been proud of - whether they were winning major honours or not.

Laporta will point to the fact that creative accounting and expensive signings such as Robert Lewandowski enabled Barca to win the title in 2022-23 - but the question has to be asked: was it really a price worth paying?

Rather than having to promote academy players out of pure necessity to plug gaps in the squad (as they did during the summer because of a shortage of defensive midfielders), wouldn't Barca have been better off focusing almost exclusively on creating even more homegrown heroes like Lamine Yamal over the past few seasons rather than selling off potential stars like Marc Guiu - and spending money they didn't have on the likes of Olmo, Ferran Torres and Vitor Roque?

The club's true fans would have forgiven a lack of silverware (for a few years at least), given the obvious need for a period of prudence to put Barca back on an even financial keel, and such a strategy would have cast the club in a far more favourable light.

Indeed, Laporta could have been the man to reconnect the club to its roots. Instead, culers been left enraged by the president's counterproductive policy of kicking the can as far down the road as possible, with Barca now counting the cost of Laporta's lever-pulling and lack of foresight.

Consequently, Barca will go into Wednesday's Spanish Supercopa semi-final against Athletic Club without Olmo, Victor or the sense of identity and dignity displayed by their opponents - just the knowledge that all of the damage done has been self-inflicted.

Laporta may not have been the president that sold FC Barcelona’s soul, but he's done nothing to get it back.