'Weird' off-field woes could spell Barca's downfall

NEW YORK • Lionel Messi's word choice was telling.

Perhaps he has started to develop a little resistance to Barcelona's capacity for self-immolation over the past few weeks. They have, after all, spent most of the year lurching from one drama to another before yesterday's Champions League last-16 first leg match at Napoli.

There was the abysmal handling of the dismissal of coach Ernesto Valverde; the unsuccessful courting of Xavi Hernandez as his replacement; and the spat between Eric Abidal and Messi over the sporting director's allegation that the players had conspired in Valverde's demise.

They are also a team who are being sued by one of their own players in a dispute over bonus payments; who sold two attacking players in January to make room for a reinforcement that never arrived; who have got themselves into a position in which they could lose one of the greatest players in football for nothing this summer.

Even by those standards, though, one controversy stood out.

The network Cadena SER reported this month that Josep Maria Bartomeu, Barcelona's president, had engaged a digital technology firm not only to try to bolster his image on social media, but also to denigrate the reputations of a group of people that included a prospective rival for the club's presidency and - the punchline - members of the team's squad.

Messi could think of only one way of describing it. "To me," he said, "it all seems weird."

It is typical of Barcelona that, at the end of six weeks of claim, counterclaim and chaos, they now sit two points clear of rivals Real Madrid atop the Spanish La Liga.

Barcelona have made a habit of this in recent years. Just when it seems like the end of an era has arrived, they weather whatever crisis and emerge in glory. There is no real mystery as to how; the slender shoulders of the man in the No. 10 jersey are strong enough to bear tremendous weight.

But if Messi's presence means Barcelona the team may be able to stave off wholesale change for a while yet, Barcelona the club is different. Over the past two decades, they have become a reference point for not only the way a team should play, but also the way a team should be run.

The current incarnation of Barcelona dates back to 2003 with the election of charismatic, ambitious Joan Laporta as president, which ushered in a bright new era.

Since then, the club started an innovation hub in 2017 with the stated aim of becoming the Silicon Valley of football. In 2018, they became the first sports team to surpass US$1 billion (S$1.4 billion) in revenue.

In his book, The Barcelona Way, Damian Hughes, a professor of organisational psychology at Manchester Metropolitan University, detailed the key principles that underpinned their success.

By following their methods, he wrote, it is possible to "learn to unlock the DNA of a winning culture".

Just two years later, though, it appears that Barcelona's winning culture exists despite, rather than because of, their corporate management structure.

Indeed, their troubles now are relatively superficial for one who have grown too accustomed to "weird" things happening.

It is to the credit of Messi and his teammates that they have achieved so much against that backdrop but it is inevitable that, at some point, they will not be able to mask the club's failings any longer.

It may be that another watershed is approaching. Even Messi, after all, can hold back the tide for only so long.

NYTIMES