Six days after a police raid on his offices led to the seizure of files and the arrests of four club officials, FC Barcelona reached its past on Sunday to elect Joan Laporta as its new president.
Laporta, a lawyer whose previous tenure as Barcelona president coincided with Lionel Messi’s debut with the club, ushered in an era of field success and commercial success, defeating two rivals in what he described as “the most important election in the history of Barcelona “. , one of Europe’s most decorated football clubs.
He received more than 50 percent of the vote and defeated his closest rival, 54.2 percent, to 29.9 percent. But the rewards of Laporta – a billion-dollar organization that has to make tough decisions on some of its most popular players, a looming financial crisis exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic and the possible loss of its best player – seem scarce a price.
The most immediate challenges he faces are to advance the biggest debt crisis in European football, currently over $ 1.3 billion; lowering the team’s salary bill, currently the highest in Europe; and to avoid the loss of Lionel Messi – perhaps as soon as this summer. Laporta was Barcelona’s president when Messi made his debut for the club more than a decade ago; now it is up to him to persuade him to stay.
“Lionel Messi loves Barça,” Laporta told fans in his first remarks, leaving little doubt that he considers the top priority of Messi’s future at the club. “We are a big family, a big club with the best player.”
A more important task, however, could be to unite a club that was once honored for elevating modern football to high art from an era of infighting, dirty tricks and red ink. The series of unfolding crises has transformed Barcelona from a model of commercial and sporting success into sometimes the extreme point of a bad joke.
“We want the joy and happiness to be in this club again,” Laporta said, calling in a direct appeal to members: “The best thing you can do for Barça is to love it.”
Laporta’s predecessor, Josep Maria Bartomeu, resigned in October, just before the vote to remove him. By that time, more than 20,000 of Barcelona’s 140,000 members had submitted the underhanded forms to evict him, and last week he was detained by police as part of the investigation into the team’s internal affairs.
But on Sunday, Bartomeu was still queuing up – along with everyday fans, team managers, former players and coaches, and even a handful members of the current first team, including Messi – to cast his presidential vote. Even in the midst of the team’s turmoil, the turnout represented the kind of quirky ethos of one-on-one voice which Barcelona is proud of.
The election was delayed by the continuing effects of the pandemic. Restrictions on mass rallies required Barcelona to change its voting process by distributing polling stations across Catalonia and allowing ballot papers for the first time in its history. But thousands of club members still turned up in person to cast their votes during the 12 hours allotted Sunday for the vote.
According to the club, more than 55,000 votes were cast by members who have not only elected a new president, but also board members who will serve until 2026. Even before the final ballots were counted, the two other candidates, the runner-up Victor Font and Toni Freixa conceded. In video broadcast on the club’s television network, Font and Freixa Congratulations Laporta and embraces him in a display of unity.
“I want to congratulate Laporta on this victory, which makes no discussion possible,” Freixa said. “We must now support our president.”
When choosing Laporta, Barcelona members opted for a candidate who remembers much of his previous term. As Barcelona’s president from 2003 to 2010, he ushered in the beginning of a golden decade of success for the century-old club.
His autograph decision, which elevated the untested Pep Guardiola from his role as coach of Barcelona’s B team to accepting the leadership of the first team in 2008, was a masterpiece. Guardiola has rebuilt Barcelona around talent in the country, including Messi, and combined it with established stars to create a football brand that captivates audiences worldwide. The club has collected more than a dozen trophies under Guardiola, including three Spanish titles and two Champions League victories, the richest and most valued club competition in Europe.
As the current team grows older and is considered below the standard of the club, Laporta will be expected to lead a similar revival. But this time the prospects are darker than ever.
More recently, Barcelona has become synonymous with negativity, with the bad news in waves. The team has been struggling since June with the extraordinary impact the coronavirus has had on its finances; a scandal involving a club-funded social media campaign targeting Bartomeu’s opponents, including several popular players; a humiliating Champions League exit; an audience falling out between Messi and Bartomeu that almost led to Messi leaving before the season; and then, recently, last week’s raid on Barcelona’s offices that led to the arrests of four team officials.
With Barcelona facing the most urgent short-term debt crisis in European football, the new president immediately faces the twin challenges to keep the club going, while also keeping promises to not only rivals such as Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. do not like. also deep-pocketed foreign challengers such as Manchester City, Paris St.-Germain, Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United, many of whom are bankrolled by Gulf bankers, Russian oligarchs or American billionaires.
As a club supported by members, Barcelona does not have the luxury. Laporta will have to decide to proceed with a plan put together by the club’s executive team and Goldman Sachs to raise 250 million euros (almost $ 300 million) by selling a basket of club-owned assets to external investors. The move would be unusual and likely controversial – and it would require support from a membership broken by the recent crisis.
The new board will also have to recalibrate fans’ expectations and reverse the course of a management style – also by Laporta during his previous tenure – that has drawn criticism over the priority of short-term rewards, in the form of lavish spending and popular (and expensive) signatures, over long-term financial stability.
He will also have to restore the club’s battered reputation. At a conference on sports business hosted by the Financial Times last month, German Bundesliga chief Christian Seifert focused on Barcelona and his rival Real Madrid on their spending habits. “These so-called superclubs are in fact poorly managed, cash-burning machines that in a decade of incredible growth have not been able to come close to any sustainable business model,” Seifert said.