Sandro Rosell started his speech by saying that “The Board qualifies the work as excellent”. He spent several minutes heaping praise on both the football team and the other four professional sections, and also the amateur and youth squads, who have been reinforced by the presence of the new Masia, which is to be called the Oriol Tort Training Centre.

Improvements in economic and patrimonial areas

There was also good new in a financial sense. “Despite the investments in the Masia, we have made improvements and recovered assets. We have provisionally put a stop to the requalification of the Miniestadi. We don’t want to sell it and do want it to remain part of our fixed assets.” Rosell admitted that some “extreme austerity measures” have been implemented because of the need to “look after our money, just like our parents and grandparents taught us, especially when it’s not your own money”.

Recovered institutional relations

Rosell was also pleased to say that “we have recovered good relations with all institutions. It wasn’t easy, but we think we have managed to put an end to the excessive amount of politics associated to the club.” The president thinks it is important to maintain such good relations in order to deal with the forthcoming changes, which include a new Palau Blaugrana, an improved Camp Nou and new machines in the Ice Rink.

Spanish Supercup aftermath

Rosell wants to put the controversy of the Supercup behind him. On the lodging of a formal complaint against José Mourinho, he said “we decided not to make one after speaking to the Sports Director for Professional Football, Andoni Zubizarreta, the coach Josep Guardiola and his assistant, Tito Vilanova. We agreed that was the best thing to do. This week we have an important European Supercup match and we don’t want people talking about anything else”.

The president spoke shortly before the appearance of Cesc and Alexis in the Palau de Congressos, and mentioned Vilanova, the main victim of Wednesday’s ugly scenes. “He asked us not to take the matter any further”, he said. “Public opinion has already made itself clear. It is clear that what this man did was wrong and that has been said. Not only that, but the authorities are on holiday right now and complaints are made about actions that might have happened or not. In this case, it is clear what happened, and the Federation will take action if it wants to”.

Need for calm

The president ended by speaking about an incident in Madrid, when stones were thrown at the Barça bus on arrival at the Santiago Bernabéu. “That shows that the situation is not good. It is not good in terms of society, or of relations in the sports world. We have to stay sober, reduce the animosity, and make things calmer, or otherwise we’ll end up killing each other in the street. It is not us that has the problem, it’s them”, he said. “Our hearts want one thing, but our sobriety has demanded something else. Now is the time to congratulate our players, enjoy the titles and forget this matter”.