Josep Maria Bartomeu has announced that Barcelona’s presidential elections will be staged this year and confirmed “we want to stand to be re-elected.”
La Blaugrana’s electoral campaign was initially scheduled for 2016, but following recent turbulence off the pitch, which culminated in the departures of Andoni Zubizarreta and Carles Puyol on Monday, their patron responded by calling a Press conference this afternoon.
“I’ve called this Press conference today to announce that we have called elections [at the end of the season],” he began.
“We want to ease the tensions which I think are disproportionate and don’t conform to the reality of the club.
“We’re a club who are performing very well socially and are still in all competitions on a sporting level.
“I ask all potential candidates to approach the campaign with fair play. We’ll keep on supporting what’s best for the club.
"The most important thing is that we’re competing for titles. Success is only achieved if we all support the team.
“It’s a decision which is shared with many of my fellow board members. I have their support. At the end of the day, I’m the one who makes decisions.
“We want to stand to be re-elected. Things are positive, we started our work 2010 and we want to continue with what we’re doing.
“We constantly scrutinise ourselves. The only thing we wanted was to reduce this tension. The club need it lowered. Organising meetings for the end of season is a way of defusing the tension.
“There comes a time in the electoral process when members of the board will resign, but we’ll see when the exact dates are.
“Bringing forward the elections is a decision I made today. I spoke with all my colleagues about it beforehand, and it gives balance to the club and the team.
“This disproportionate stress ultimately affects the team. Therefore we’ve called the elections so we can focus on strengthening the team.”
