The majority of football news have slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. But another chaos makes the Barcelona headquarters shake: A few days after Bartomeu asked 4 board members to step down, it is now official. Emili Rousaud, Enrique Tombas, Silvio Elias & Josep Pont have presented their resignation. Maria Teixidor & Jordi Casamiglia have joined them too.
With only 13 members left, the board is incomplete. Normally, the directives count 14 members. But yesterday’s massive overhaul brought the board members from 19 to 13.
It remains unclear whether Bartomeu will replace the vacant positions. Emili Rousaud & Enrique Tombas were among the most prominent to have stepped dow, having served as Vice Presidents to Bartomeu.
According to Emili Rousaud, one of the turning points was the Barçagate. As a few board members disliked Bartomeu’s handling on the scandal with I3 Ventures. “We must emphasize our disappointment in the unfortunate incident with social media, known as ‘BarçaGate”.
In other words, Rousaud, along other board members didn’t approve the Barçagate gestion. As Rousaud said: “it was not right to criticize the players through the media”.
Furthermore, Rousaud stated in an interview with Cadena SER: “The majority called for early elections but nothing happened”. Possible early elections would have taken place in June 2020. However, Bartomeu has decided otherwise. Between risking discontinuity in his board or dismissing members, the choice is clear for Barcelona’s president.
Rosaud later denied being Bartomeu’s endorsed candidate for 2021: “I wasn’t a candidate. We only agreed that if somebody would run, it would be me”
Bartomeu asked for board members to step down .“As he wants to be surrounded with ‘trustworthy’ people in his last year”, ESPN reported. Disagreeing with Bartomeu is what caused these 6 board members to step down, not redeemed ‘trustworthy’ by Bartomeu.
Are we heading for new elections?
The latest resignations surely won’t get unnoticed. But it doesn’t matter, or at least, it doesn’t worry Bartomeu. A handful of socios-members that vote for the presidency-still trust the current president, in opposition to the majority.
In fact, the main social media platforms-Instagram, Twitter, Facebook-are full of fans awaiting Bartomeu’s era as Barcelona president.
However, Bartomeu partly controls two big media outlets: Mundo Deportivo( or MD) & SPORT.
Most of the socios tend to be in a older age group, the socios only read these two newspapers. As such, socios are daily fed with Bartomeu’s propaganda. Don’t forget these two newspapers were among the ones claiming our players didn’t agree to the 70% pay cut, later debunked.
As such, the socios still trust Bartomeu and it looks unlikely that yesterday’s resignations will change anything.
Luckily enough, this may benefit the future candidate Victor Font, founder of the project ‘Si Al Futur’.
A large majority of ex-board members that ended up resigning under Bartomeu revealed the unknown truth in interviews. Rousaud is the latest: “I don’t think I’ve done anything wrong. I was surprised by his call and told him we should wait until we can see face to face. I told him to rethink about it”
There’s one year left until the 2021 elections. This will give more time for future candidates Laporta & Font to convince more socios to vote for their projects. Especially Font having Xavi, Puyol among others on his side.
With Bartomeu’s camp being split in two, this may be the turning point for the other candidates to win new voters.
