Barcelona news is now being dominated by the elections, which will be held later this month and has now been whittled down to the four final candidates.
Carlos Tusquets is the current interim president of the Blaugrana but elections will be held on 24 January with multiple candidates vying to replace the departed Josep Maria Bartomeu.
On Monday, the nine candidates had to prove they had met the minimum threshold of 2,257 signatures from club members in order to be on the final ballot.
Agusti Benedito, Pere Riera, Jordi Farre and Fernandez Ala were among those to miss out on the requirement, leaving just four candidates in the running.
To be considered as a Barcelona presidential candidate, all hopefuls need the signature approval of at least 2,257 members and to present a guaranteed payment of at least €124.2m to be considered for the vacant position of president.
The four remaining candidates are Joan Laporta, Victor Font, Toni Freixa and Emili Rousaud with La Vanguardia detailing the remaining four.
Laporta has garnered a whopping 10,257 signatures – fourth on the all-time record list at this stage.
Laporta’s main challenger for the post, Victor Font, has collected 4,710 members signatures – meaning that he is likely to need the support of other runners, who would drop out of the race, to throw their weight behind him.
Freixa served on the board under former incumbents Sandro Rosell and Josep Maria Bartomeu but left the board in 2015.
52-year-old Freixa, who is a lawyer by trade, finished bottom of the pile in the 2015 presidential elections at the club with just 3.7 percent of the vote – 1,750 votes – but is hopeful of building on that this time round.
Freixa has been criticised as a so-called continuity candidate of the previous boards whom he worked under, but he insisted he would be a break from those former presidents.
Rousaud was mired in controversy with the club earlier this year after he claimed that individuals involved on the board – who have subsequently resigned – were seeking to use the club for personal profit.
Rousaud has pledged to rename the club’s Camp Nou stadium after Lionel Messi if he wins the position of presidency, as he told Marca in November.
