The first battle for the presidency of Barça
The pre-candidates have fifteen days to obtain 2,166 signatures
BarcelonaBarça members will choose new president on Sunday, March 15But a couple of weeks before, everyone will have a better idea of what the final results might be. The hopefuls—currently four are confirmed—will wage their first battle by collecting signatures. It will be a kind of public poll that will reveal the extent to which President Joan Laporta has everything in his favor to retain his mandate, or if, as the other pre-candidates insist, "it's a close race." Submitting the 2,166 signatures required—50% of the 4,331 delegates the club currently has—to move from pre-candidate to candidate is no easy feat. Members like Xavier Vilajoana know this well, as he is once again running for president after failing to meet the signature threshold five years ago and being dropped from the electoral race prematurely. The four names that have confirmed their candidacies already have previous experience. Besides Laporta and Vilajoana, Víctor Font was a candidate in the 2021 elections. And Marc Círia, who is running for president for the first time, was part of Laporta's board in 2015. There is a fifth name, Joan Camprubí Montal, none of whom are currently visible. He will make his decision next week, according to sources close to him.
The last elections were in 2021, but those elections were marked by the coronavirus pandemic, which significantly impacted the collection of signatures. They were also marked by the mass resignation of Josep Maria Bartomeu's board, which preempted the vote of no confidence that had already garnered the necessary support. In fact, despite the COVID-19 restrictions, a candidate like Víctor Font—very active in that motion—used much of the logistical support he had used to help oust Bartomeu to secure a place on the ballot. However, Font struggled to obtain all the required endorsements, and, as his team recalls, it wasn't until two days before handing them in at the club who physically had all the necessary support to make the cut. "Many people kept telling us, 'Yes, yes, we'll send it,' but it never arrived. Until we had it in our hands, we couldn't take it for granted."
A heavy collection process
The process is cumbersome and, in some ways, can seem outdated. Candidates must request club support forms and return them filled out with the member's name, membership number, and signature, along with a photocopy of their ID. Recruiting members isn't easy, and this has led to some hilarious situations, such as candidate Jordi Farré promising "pizzas and" in 2021. tattoosto those who went to his headquarters to support him. In the last statutory reform, Barça opened the possibility of streamlining the collection process and allowing endorsements to be submitted electronically. For now, the club has not specified whether this will be possible. This question will not be answered until next week, when the elections are officially called. In fact, there are many unknowns to resolve. Apart from whether the collection of endorsements can be done electronically, it is also not defined whether the voting will be in the conventional format or if, as in 2021, postal voting will be enabled and there will be polling stations throughout the country. It is also unclear whether tents will be set up on the esplanade, as has always been done. Some of these unknowns must be resolved on Monday, which is when the elections will be officially called, Joan Laporta will present his resignation, and a provisional board will be formed, chaired by the first vice-president, Rafael Yuste.
Pre-candidates can request ballots starting in Phase IV of the elections, which begins on February 15th with the publication of the electoral roll. The club has a maximum of 36 hours to deliver them. This means that the effective collection of ballots runs from February 16th to March 2nd at 9 pm. Two frantic weeks in which the pre-candidates will deploy their volunteer networks and set up multiple collection points throughout the territory. But, unlike what happens in the Catalan Parliament or city councils, contacting members has an added difficulty, since the club does not provide the electoral roll to the candidates. Nor, by law, to the current president, Laporta. That is why people like Font will resort to the database they had saved from 2021 and which they have expanded with members who have contacted them recently.
"We are concerned about the demobilization of the membership base"
"We're worried about the demobilization of the fan base," sources from the various teams admitted quietly. That's why the role of the supporters' clubs will be so important; they've traditionally been a meeting point for members and a source of endorsements. Although, generally speaking, the supporters' club movement has backed a winning horse: it was a major source of support for Sandro Rosell (2010), Bartomeu (2015), and Laporta (2021).
However, simply submitting the ballots on Monday the 2nd at 9:00 PM is not enough. They then need to be validated, a task carried out by Barça staff under the supervision of the pre-candidates, and which generally ends in internal arguments. "All the candidates claim their ballots are valid and that their rivals' should be invalidated," recalls a veteran of Barça's electoral processes. If any ballot lacks the correct information, it is invalid; and if a member signs for two or more candidates, all of these signatures are also invalidated. This led to a situation in 2015, FCB Follow-up will be out of the race by only 16 votesTypically, around 5% of the guarantees end up being torn up. "They have to submit 2,500 to avoid problems," they say at the Barcelona offices.