The Barça elections will be a head-to-head contest

Barcelona"We need the elections to be a plebiscite between the Barça of the past and the Barça of the future." Víctor Font's mantra for the past few weeks has finally become a reality: as Barça announced this Thursday, Marc Ciria obtained 2,247 valid member signatures but did not reach the threshold of 2,337. Therefore, the incumbent Joan Laporta (7,226 valid signatures) and candidate Font (4,440) will face off on March 15. This Monday, Ciria submitted 2,844 signatures at the Auditori 1899, 598 more than those validated in the final count. The signature validation process was much more unforgiving than expected: while approximately 6% of signatures are typically lost, Marc Ciria saw 21% of his signatures discarded. Joan Laporta has lost 944 signatures, 11% of those submitted, and Víctor Font, 704 (14%).

As explained by Barça's interim vice-president, Josep Cubells, during the signature count, a pre-candidacy asked the club to accept as valid ballots that did not include the required photocopy of the identity card. According to Moviment 42, they submitted 125 ballots without a photocopy of the ID card, as they believed the requirement violated data protection rights. "We never thought it could be a problem," they explained. Furthermore, as Marc Ciria confirmed, they also lost 142 signatures because "the membership number did not correspond to 2025 or 2026." "To understand how the process went, consider that even Marc Ciria's signature was in the pile of questionable ones," Ciria explained. For this reason, the pre-candidacy has stated that it will defend the members who supported them, although it has ruled out challenging the electoral process. Ciria falls short of 90 signatures to become a candidate.

Doubts about whether Ciria would ultimately make the cut have been growing in recent days. On Sunday night, just hours before he had to submit the required signatures at the club offices, as explained by sources close to the negotiations, the pre-candidate tried to make a move for a joint candidacy with Font. While until recently Ciria had always postponed talks until after the signature count was complete, at the last minute he wanted to discuss the possibility of running together, although he maintained that he would pass the threshold. This move raised concerns about Ciria within Font's circle, who, despite initially appearing open to a hypothetical alliance, ultimately rejected Ciria's demands. Ciria was asking for significant weight on the list and imposed vetoes on former members of the Laporta, Bartomeu, and Rosell candidacies, according to sources close to the situation at ARA. However, Marc Ciria denied this last-minute rapprochement on Thursday.

"The majority want change"

Without knowing how many valid signatures the other pre-candidates submitted, the count of signatures against the club's management totals 6,687, to which must be added the 1,686 signatures submitted by Xavier Vilajoana, Daniel Juan, and William Maddock. Once the count was finished, Joan Laporta obtained 7,226. The opposition celebrated these results enthusiastically. "The majority wants change. I'm convinced we're going to win," Víctor Font asserted. The candidate claimed that in the first "real poll," the ballot count, "change" prevailed. Laporta downplayed the decrease in signatures compared to 2021—when he submitted 10,257—saying that Barcelona fans are less mobilized than five years ago thanks to good management, and that at that time "there was a greater need for change." However, the opposition points out that this demobilization has also affected them, yet they have emerged stronger.

Given that the other pre-candidates have been eliminated, Víctor Font reiterated his invitation this Thursday to all those who "share the diagnosis" to join his candidacy. "The doors are more open than ever," the candidate asserted, adding: "We have to put an end to the 'good guys and bad guys' Barça. This is about the Barça of the future: it's not about Font versus Laporta." This afternoon, Ciria made no secret of his support for Font going forward: "The club's management model urgently needs a change. March 15th is a historic turning point." The leader of Nosotros, in line with Ciria, also explained that the large number of invalidated signatures across all pre-candidacies is due to the "archaic system" of the collection process. Specifically, their campaign explained that they encountered many members who, lacking a physical membership card, did not provide their membership number correctly. "During these weeks, we have found many members who didn't even have the app installed," stated Carles Ordiales, a member of the Nosotros campaign.

The last time a pre-candidacy was eliminated after the vote count was in 2015. In those elections, which Josep Maria Bartomeu ultimately won, the Seguimiento FCB group—which has joined the Nosotros campaign in this election—submitted 2,780 signatures and 2,534 ballots. However, the pre-candidacy did not pass the count and fell 16 signatures short of the threshold. Furthermore, one has to go back to 2000 to find a head-to-head matchup between presidential candidates. On that occasion, Joan Gaspart and Lluís Bassat engaged in a close race, with Gaspart ultimately prevailing with 54.80% of the vote. Since then, the remaining elections (2003, 2010, 2015, and 2021) have featured more than three candidates.