Barcelona had been admired across global football as a club that combines success on the pitch with fan involvement. It is a key part of the resurgence of Catalonia. In the 2018/19 season, it became the world’s highest revenue-generating club with €840.8m — an increase of nearly €500m from a decade earlier. Barcelona’s stated ambition was to be the first football club to reach annual revenues of more than €1bn. The pandemic has punctured that notion. Years of financial mismanagement have seen the club accumulate debts of a barely believable €1.17 billion — which, for any normal business, would mean bankruptcy and liquidation. The arrests last week of Bartomeu and three other past or present Barca executives in a judicial investigation into potential financial crimes at the Nou Camp was yet another reminder of just what a mess the club is in. (Bartomeu emphatically denies any wrongdoing). The hope of a recovery from these challenges was what ...