29.01.2010 20:30
Presidential elections set for June 13th
www.fcbarcelona.cat
President Joan Laporta announced this Friday that the elections for Club President will be held on June 13th. The decision was taken unanimously by the board in their meeting in Vic and was also agreed to by Guardiola and Begiristain.
“We’re planning to hold the elections on June 13th. This will be confirmed when
elections are called at the end of April” according to Sr Laporta, who announced the decision
after the board meeting held in Vic on Friday.
Sporting interests paramount
Sr Laporta explained that the reasons for choosing the date were: “purely sporting
– this means that the electoral process will not interfere with the sporting interests of the
club. We want to be with the team – sport is the basis of the club”. The final game in
which Barca could be involved in is the final of the Champions League, to be held on May 22nd.
Agreement with Guardiola and Txiki
As well as the board’s unanimous vote on the date, the President
also explained that Josep Guardiola and Txiki Begiristain had also been consulted: “before
anything was decided definitively, we talked with Pep and Txiki about what the board felt and they
weighed up the pros and cons and told us the decision was fine with them”.
Call for responsibility
“We’ve made this announcement now, even though there are
still five months to go, because there was a concern in the air and also because some members
wanted to discuss the issue now”. In order to ensure a smooth electoral process and avoid any
conflict between the day to day running of the club and the election campaign, Laporta appealed to
“all the candidates’ sense of responsibility”.
Board members
According to the club statutes, if any member of the board wishes to be a candidate for
President, they have to resign before announcing their candidature officially. In the case of
Alfons Godall and Jaume Ferrer, who have already expressed an interest in standing, Laporta
explained: “if they wish to continue during the months leading up to the campaign, there is
no problem. The statutes oblige them to resign only once elections have officially been
called”, something which will not happen until May.
World Cup limits pre-season opportunities
The 2010 World Cup in South Africa will seriously affect Barca’s 2010-11 pre-season plans,
which are still being finalised and will possibly be different from recent years according to
Director General Joan Oliver: “we are facing a very complicated set of fixtures, with the
World Cup not set to finish till July 11th and that means we will have to adapt the pre-season next
year. However, I can say that our intention is to continue our efforts to focus on the Asia
market”.