KPMG: Barcelona can reach €1bn turnover by 2021
Ahead of his successful re-election last month, Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu revealed his ambitious plans to make the European champions the first football club to generate €1bn in turnover by the 2021 season.
Read more: Barcelona forecast €600m income from treble-winning season
Yet according to KPMG's football advisory arm, such a statement wasn't just an empty election epithet: Barcelona can make that much money within six years.
In fact, they could even make more.
A wildly successful 2014/15 season saw Los Blaugrana break records both on and off the pitch as they became the first club to win the treble for a second time and generate revenue over €600m – according to an audit from accounting firm Deloitte.
10 years ago, Barcelona's turnover was just €246m. According to KMPG, the club's revenue has since recorded a compound average growth rate of 9.94 per cent in all bar one of the seasons since, with the biggest jump coming in the last season from €530m to €608m.
And if the club can keep that up over the next six seasons they'll reach their target.
In a study posted to the firm's website, the brains behind KPMG's Football Benchmark write:
The financial statements of FC Barcelona demonstrate that the club was able to profit from the on-pitch success achieved by the team. However, there is still potential for further growth. Among others, the long-awaited redevelopment of Camp Nou and the new sponsorship contracts could strengthen the club’s matchday and commercial revenue channels.
Barcelona already enjoy the second-highest revenue per seat outside of the Premier League – making an average of €42 per match from every fan at the Nou Camp in the 2013/14 season – but a planned expansion of 7,500 executive VIP seats has the potential to swell the club's coffers even further.