Joan Laporta, president of Barcelona, is involved in a legal battle for the 'giant case', and a documentary focused on the issue only has further aspersies on his treatment both of the case and his management of Barcelona. Laporta has had to deal with accusations of naming those with personal ties with him in positions at the club instead of merit, and accusations in the documentary certainly speaks to that.
The giant case revolves around Laporta and colleague Barcelona directors (when they were not in office) Joan Olive, Rafa Yuste and Xavier Sala I Marti, who have had to deal with five legal complaints that accused them of a scam. The deal in question included investing in a company (core store), about the promise of a return on investment, which in turn acquired 53% of the giant. The Catalan club, located for an hour along the coast from Barcelona, was affected in 2019 and none of the investors received their money back.
In the documentary, Sisters Paula and Carmen Tartas who invested in the Core Store were registered in the documentary without their knowledge talking about what they had been told by intermediary Sandra Sole, who initially sought their investments. They seem to suggest that Laporta had offered some of the investors who did not receive their money back in Barcelona to prevent legal steps.
“He told us that we would be paid anyway. I will tell Barca to hire you. Everyone at Barca is involved there: his wife, his son, his brother, his cousin … you could be there too. It looked like a Mercadona, but for football, with 3,000 people. That's what they gave Toni Cruz as compensation for the investment … “
“You don't have to work; it is a contract and they will pay you.” Their brother, who also invested € 50k, in addition to the € 400K invested by his brothers and sisters, is an artist and they claim to buy his paintings for the price of the debt, and that Barcelona would buy them. “
The aforementioned Toni Cruz, one of the investors in the Core Store, is now director at Barca One, while Laporta has acknowledged before the court that he has the only one employed to seek investors for Core Store. Laporta has so far denied accusations of fraud and the case is still ongoing. It is also not clear which Power Laporta should make choices in the club, since he was not in the club at that time.
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