FC Barcelona Confidential

Youth, ambition, Catalan nationalism, dotcom expertise, commercial aggressiveness, a break with the old mafia-style ethos of football management, a commitment to Barça’s huge 100,000 membership to open up the club, and, last but not least, a passion for football – combined into an almost messianic mission.

Year

2005

Length

83 min

Directors

Daniel Hernández and Justin Webster

On 15 June, 2003 a group of thirty-something professionals and dotcom millionaires, led by a young lawyer, Joan Laporta, took over one of the biggest football clubs in the world. Their starting point could not be worse. The club was technically bankrupt with € 250m of debts. The team had been humiliated on the pitch. For four seasons they have won nothing. The glamourous, All Star success of their eternal rival Real Madrid dwarfs them. General discredit, and accusations of corruption hang in the air after years of decadent and disasterous management.

With unprecedented, exclusive access to the inner workings of a major European club, we observe the story of Laporta’s and his team’s first year in power. Not from a distance, but from beside the main players in private meetings. Not through narration but through action. After their dramatic victory in Barça’s unique elections, come the first crises – snubbed by David Beckham, but successful in luring the Brazilian star Ronaldhino – to the reinventing of the club, confrontations with the violent fans, and a complete reorganisation, from the football team to the offices.

The wave of hope and euphoria turns to suffering and despair in the first half of the season as the football team fails to perform. The new board fights financial and commercial battles to survive. Usually only seen through a glare of media coverage, we see the real issues unfold behind close doors. From an historic defeat in their own stadium against Real Madrid in December, Barça recovers spectacularly in the pitch in the second half of the film. Its eternal rival Real Madrid collapses, Barça surges upwards. The new board survives to usher in a radical new style of doing business in football, in the fiercest league in the world.

Credits

Directed by
Daniel Hernández
Justin Webster

Director of Photography
Pep Sancho

Editing
Jorge Mota
Olivier Bugee Coutté

Sound
Alex Vilches

Music
La Crem

Producer
Stephanie von Lukowicz

Executive producer
Pablo Usón
Daniel Wolf

Sales & distribution

Trailer

„Just in diesem Moment überraschen uns die aus dem Theaterbereich stammenden jungen Regisseure Hans Block und Moritz Riesewieck mit einem erstaunlichen Dokumentarfilm, der seit Monaten Publikum und Kritik auf den wichtigsten Festivals der Welt elektrisiert. Völlig zu Recht: Es ist, als würden einem die Scheuklappen weggerissen, als sähe man das, was sich seit Jahren direkt vor unseren Augen abspielt, zum ersten Mal unverschleiert... eine fesselnde ,Doku noir' mit höchstem Anspruch...Dieser Film müsste an allen Schulen gezeigt werden.“

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

17.05.2018