Cartoon 4: The spying goes on

...
Pepe! There's a man at the window spying on us!

Oliver
Yes, but I'm doing it for your good and for the good of Barça.

...
Now I understand what "More than a club" means: it's a sect!

(click the cartoon to enlarge)


by ferreres

source:
el periódico

see more cartoons here

Barcagate (4) - Laporta speaks about spying claims

More than two days after the publication of a report that Barcelona has been spying on four vice-presidents, Barcelona president Joan Laporta commented on the case on Saturday 26 September in the afternoon in Malaga, where Barcelona would play the fifth game of the Liga later that day:

"This happened in April, five months ago, and when I was informed, explanations were given and those were understood and accepted. The security audits were legal and were carried out to protect the people involved as well as the club.

There were certain suspicions that someone had tried to obtain personal information about the vice-presidents and we acted. We've turned the page and the chapter is closed.

People are exaggerating. It's obvious that some want me to sack certain people but they won't succeed. I won't give in to this blackmail. I want to make very clear that Joan Oliver is an intelligent man with a great work-rate, who is courageous and very competent.

He's one of the best general directors in the history of the club and one of the main architects of the good times this club is going through. I don't have any intention to let him go. I want him by my side. I fully trust him and this Barça needs him.

I didn't know about these audits. That decision was made by the chief executive and the head of security because it is within their authority. When they received the results, Oliver told me about it and I thought we had to inform the vice-presidents about this. The results were understood and accepted.

Now why does this reappear after five months? This is an election year and there are people who want to heat things up. And as we are now living the best moment in the history of the club, they don't have arguments for their own project and they just try to destabilize us.

And above that, they especially want to get me, because I have a certain way of thinking and I talk clear. There are intolerant people who don't accept this."

When opening the academic year of the School of Journalism at the Ramón Llull university in Barcelona on Wednesday 30 September, Laporta spoke a second time about the matter, basically repeating the same.

this is the fourth of six parts on the case. the next part will cover the reactions of the vice-presidents involved. you can read the whole series here.


Read the previous part of this series:
Barçagate (1) - El Periodico breaks the news
Barçagate (2) - Emergency press conference
Barçagate (3) - New revelations in the press


picture:
Barcelona president Joan Laporta -left- and Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver -right- during Barcelona's Champions League game against Dynamo Kiev on Tuesday 29 september 2009

Cartoon 3: Messi and Henry make discovery

Messi:
This ball seems a little strange to me...
I guess they're not spying on us, right?

Henry:
I'm sure they're not spying on us.
At the most, they are carrying out a security audit.

(click the cartoon to enlarge)


by caye

source:
cayecaturas.com
sport.es

see more cartoons here

Barçagate (3) - New revelations in the press

In the hours and days after the publication by Catalan sports paper El Periódico of the report saying that Barcelona had been spying on four vice-presidents and the following press conference by Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver explaining the version of the club, several media revealed new -and sometimes contradicting- details about what happened in March and April of this year.


1. What was in the security audit report?

Catalan newspaper El Periódico suggests they had access to the reports by describing that every page of the reports wears the logo of detective agency Método 3 and that they have an annex with copies of official documents.

The audits would have been ordered by Oliver, although it was a member of the club's security department who contacted the agency. The reports were ready after three weeks. To draw up the reports, people of the entourage of the four directors were discretely interviewed and official documents were looked at. The targets were not followed or spied upon.

The agency reportedly found flaws and a few irregularities regarding all vice-presidents, although all of these would be of minor importance. The audit has information on the business and economical activities of the investigated persons, their properties and their legal and tax situation. There is no reference to the fact that one of them could be being investigated by third persons.

There would be no references to the personal lives of the vice-presidents, except one mentioning of a legal dispute one of the four has with his former mother-in-law regarding the ownership of a company. Spanish sports paper As nevertheless claims that the reports include some very intimate details about the private lives of the directors.

Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia claims that vice-president Joan Franquesa was totally cleared by the background check. Although the other three vice-presidents (Joan Boix, Jaume Ferrer and Rafael Yuste) are convinced they are also clean, one of them would have some weak points.

2. What was the reason for the investigations, who found out and what happened when it was found out?

- Catalan radio station Catalunya Ràdio claims that it was Barcelona vice-president Joan Franquesa who asked the club to carry out a security audit to see if he would be able to run for president in 2010. Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo confirmed this version of the events. Madrid sports paper As claims that Franquesa contacted Barcelona head of security Xavier Martorell.

Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver would then have decided on his own to also investigate the other three vice-presidents who could be a candidate in the elections.

During the investigations, Barcelona vice-president Jaume Ferrer reportedly found out something was going on and asked Barcelona president Joan Laporta for an explication. During a tense meeting, during which both men unconfirmedly would even have gotten physical, it was agreed that the vice-presidents would from now on be better informed about the club's activities.

- Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia on the other hand reports that the investigations were discovered when vice-president Franquesa saw a newspaper report about his person and was advised by his lawyer to investigate this. Two weeks later, his lawyer reportedly told him: "It's Barça who is investigating you."

Franquesa contacted Martorell, who confirmed him that Oliver had ordered the investigation. The matter was discussed at a board meeting, during which several board members asked for the dismissal of Oliver. Others directors wanted to resign themselves and put the case in the hands of the police.

- Catalan radio station RAC 1 reports that Ferrer was close to attacking Oliver during a meeting which also involved the three other vice-presidents.

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo says that Martorell offered to resign, which in the end didn't happen. The security audits also wouldn't have been handed immediately to the four people concerned, but only after those explicitly demanded this when they found out about the investigations.

Catalan sports paper Sport claims that one of the vice-presidents considered to step down. El Mundo Deportivo says that this was Franquesa, who still would be considering to leave before the end of this board's term next year.

In the end the case was settled, in the benefit of the club. Madrid sports paper As claims that at least one of the vice-presidents is nonetheless still convinced that Laporta knew about the investigations beforehand.

Barcelona opposition news site Pelikano claims, based upon sources close to the board, that Laporta set up the whole operation, trying to torpedo a possible candidacy of Ferrer, who is not the favourite of the president to succeed him but who has the support of the majority of the board members. Ferrer would therefore have been the main target of the investigations.

In the margin
Spanish newspaper El País reported that Barcelona chief executive Oliver and Barcelona board member Xavier Sala i Martín own a consultancy company together. As was already known before, both men are also members of Catalunya Oberta, a right-wing think-tank. Sala replied on Facebook that the company is in fact a charity organization, so that they cannot be seen as business partners.

this is the third of ten parts on the case. the next parts will cover the reactions of the president and the board members involved. you can read the whole series here.


Read the previous part of this series:
Barçagate (1) - El Periodico breaks the news
Barçagate (2) - Emergency press conference


picture:
Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver -left- and Barcelona marketing vice-president Jaume Ferrer -right- talking on Thursday 24 September, the day Catalan newspaper El Periódico brought the story on the investigations

Cartoon 2: Laporta denies spying claims

* The Dynamic Duo 2 - The Dynamo 0 *


Laporta:
Relax, I'm not spying on anyone...
I'm just watching the first knock-out round coming closer each day.

(click the cartoon to enlarge)


by caye

source:
cayecaturas.com
sport.es

see more cartoons here

Cartoon 1: Oliver denies spying claims

Oliver:
Barça hasn't spied on anyone!

Detective 1:
No? And what have we been doing then?

Detective 2:
It looks like someone doesn't want to pay our bonus. As he did when Eto'o was sold...

(click the cartoon to enlarge)


by kap

source:
el mundo deportivo

see more barça cartoons here

Barçagate (2) - Emergency press conference

Few hours after El Periódico brought the news that Barcelona had been spying on four of the club's vice-presidents (read more here), Barcelona called an emergency press conference at 12:15 pm that same Thursday 24 september.

While Barcelona president Joan Laporta was - in the company of three of the four vice-presidents involved (Ferrer, Yuste and Franquesa) - inaugurating a statue of former Barcelona player László Kubala, Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver faced the press alone and gave his version of the events:

"I can confirm that we have carried out an investigation but I want to make clear that the report that was published today refers to spying, while we were in fact protecting and defending those people. When somebody is the target of a security audit and it's he who receives the result - which is what happened here - that's not espionage. You can call it whatever you want, just do not use the word 'spying'.

Of course we are not happy that this information has been published but we don't have any problems to give further explanations. Although we would prefer to be able to work with more discretion, we are aware that few things in this club are not publicly known.

Everything started in March of this year when vice-president Joan Franquesa informed the club that he thought he was being investigated and followed. The police was not informed because there were only indications and no real proof. He thought this had to do with his position as vice-president of the club and asked us to verify the situation and his security.

Taking into account previous events related to security issues at the club - the death threats to the president, the theft of his computer, the theft of a data base and other incidents that we will not reveal - we decided to act. We considered this to be a reasonable request and, as security is an important issue for the club, we also thought it made sense to extend this to other vice-presidents, namely misters Joan Boix, Jaume Ferrer and Rafael Yuste. That's when these security audits were commissioned.

I want to point out that this happened shortly after first vice-president Alfons Godall had announced that he had no intention of being a candidate in the next elections, so there you had a situation in which the other four vice-presidents came more into the limelight because people were starting to discuss which one of them could become the continuity candidate. So yes, there was an electoral element to it as they played a bigger role. In short, all of them gained some public notoriety and that made them vulnerable. I also want to mention that current director Xavier Sala i Martín was at that time not yet a member of the board.

The club then contacted Método 3, a firm with a good reputation with whom we normally work, to carry out the audits. As is usual in security matters, this all happened with discretion so things could be done efficiently. At the beginning of April, the results of the security audit were known and, after being shared with them, they are now in the possession of the four vice-presidents. I think the fact that nobody did anything after they were informed about the audits is sufficient proof that nothing irregular happened.

A security audit consists of verifying information about those people that is available in public records and places, as well as making inquiries about them regarding certain areas of relevance. What is also part of it is trying to find out whether this person is being subjected to illegal activities of others. This is for example a very common practice in the United States.

A security audit can also be defined by what it is not and it's important to make this clear. It is not and does not contain any type of following of people or any activity related to these people's communications, meaning for example that telephone conversations or e-mails are not checked.

The cost of this audit was 56 000 euros, which is a little more than 1% of the club's security budget, which is four million euros. I want to make clear here that there are two types of security the club is dealing with: we have the security of people and brands, and then there's the security of the facilities. It's a very complex situation that asks for a lot of efforts. I can on the other hand guarantee you that this club never has been investigating people, so it is excluded that we have been following former vice-president Sandro Rosell.

President Laporta was not behind all this. Like all the vice-presidents, he was informed about the results once we got them. He didn't know about it before because that's the way we work here. We are doing things and depending on the results, the president is informed. Every day thousands of decisions are being made and people are informed from the moment this is relevant for them. I don't know if this is good or bad but it's our policy. The president takes care of the strategic matters, not the day-to-day activities.

Six months have now passed since the events took place and I insist that this was a normal procedure within the club's security measures. I cannot confirm or deny that similar audits were carried out before but it was just another measure without any special importance. Another thing is that this security audit was undertaken with the most strict respect for the law. It's a standard measure and no rules have been violated.

I never thought about resigning. Not back then and not after things have become public now. I am here because of a decision of the board and I don't think people have lost their trust in me. This happened half a year ago and nobody asked me anything. But if they would now ask me to leave, I would go with the great satisfaction of having worked at this club."

this is the second of ten parts on the case. the third part will cover some further revelations. you can read the whole series here.

Read the first part of this series:
Barçagate (1) - El Periodico breaks the news