The next Barça president will not have to go to the notary in the early hours of the morning.

BarcelonaJoan Laporta's term began with an unforgettable image. In the early hours of the morning, at a notary's office on the Diagonal, the Barça directors they signed in extremis the guarantee to be able to take office. It was incredibly difficult to raise the necessary 124.7 million, representing 15% of the club's operating budget, as most of the board members – including the president – didn't have the money. It was achieved at the last minute, requiring external assistance, and it influenced the decisions made during the first months of his term. such as the departure of Leo Messi. Five years later, there will be elections again, but scenes like these will not be repeated. The endorsements are now a thing of the past, and Laporta will not make any changes to Barça's statutes before the elections.

In reality, the statutes were amended at the beginning of his term. Anticipating challenges, Laporta convinced the delegates to temporarily eliminate one of the articles, Article 67, which forced the board to resign if it closed a fiscal year with losses and failed to offset them the following season. There were other changes, but this was the most substantial. A few months later, the board launched a participatory process to reform the constitution and "adapt it to current times," according to Elena Fort, the institutional vice president. Initially, the process was to be presented and voted on in 2022, but years have passed, and the proposal has been repeatedly delayed. "We've been slower than we'd like," admit sources in the Barcelona offices, where they assure that the main outlines of the statutory reform are already in place, but that "now is not the time" to present it to the members. "With elections on the horizon, the members wouldn't understand a change to the statutes. So we're leaving it for the next term," board sources told ARA. The modifications should have been made at the last ordinary general meeting or, if that wasn't possible, an extraordinary one should have been called.

The major statutory reform was supposed to be announced and approved in 2022

In the 2021 reform, one of the points that Laporta couldn't change was that of the guarantees. As ARA explained, the president was not only against it, but he had even stated in some meeting He didn't think it was fair that, in addition to providing personal guarantees, the directors had to pay for the maintenance of the guarantee—which amounted to €75,000 per quarter per director—out of their own pockets. But those were the rules of the game and couldn't be changed, since the 15% guarantee was one of the requirements of the 1990 Sports Law and applied to clubs that weren't public limited companies. If changes were to be made, they had to be done in Congress. It was a political decision, and the president found the best ally in Florentino Pérez. Thanks to the intervention of the Real Madrid president—who also wanted to amend this point—the guarantee requirement was eliminated in January 2022. Thus, It no longer had to be guaranteed by law.Instead, the text left the decision to provide a guarantee and the required amount in the hands of the clubs.

"We consider it unfair to guarantee 125 million, but it's not normal for it to be zero either. A middle ground is necessary," said a person very close to the president. The statutory reform already foreseen determining this Solomon-like figure, although the amount of money required has not yet been revealed. "It had to be a low enough amount to be guaranteed without problems, but at the same time high enough for the board members to feel the weight of the responsibility," says the same source. But since the changes haven't been implemented, the elections will proceed without the guarantee being necessary. Therefore, there will be no need for late-night scrambles or endless negotiations with the banks, whether it's Laporta or some other occupant of the Camp Nou presidential box.

There is speculation about an electoral process at Barça with many pre-candidates

Following this decision, there is speculation within the club about the possibility of more pre-candidates than ever before in the upcoming elections. However, the reality is that things haven't changed that much regarding the electoral process. Historically, the endorsement wasn't required at the start of the process; instead, the winner didn't have to submit it until a maximum of ten days after the voting. "It will be as always. There will be serious candidates and others who aren't. From there, it's up to each person to decide who they want to listen to," a member of the board points out. In fact, at the beginning of this term, the possibility of requiring pre-candidates to pay a non-refundable fee when collecting their ballots was even considered. The measure was intended, on the one hand, to "compensate for the expenses" derived from the electoral process and, on the other, "to act as an initial filter to prevent the elections from becoming a circus," assures a former club executive. There had been speculation about setting a sum of 100,000 euros, but this proposal was also shelved because it was "considered unpopular and could be interpreted as classist." With Laporta determined to run again and many potential candidates starting to position themselves, all that remains is to set the election date. According to the statutes, it must be between March 15 and June 15. The winner will take office on July 1.