Soriano meeting with Godall and Sala

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that former Barcelona economic vice-president Ferran Soriano has been meeting over the past days and weeks with Barcelona board members.

Soriano would recently have had a dinner with Barcelona treasurer Xavier Sala i Martín in New York, where Sala i Martín is professor of economics at Columbia University. The current chairman of Spanish airline Spanair would also have met several times with Barcelona first vice-president Alfons Godall, the last time on Tuesday when the two went for a light afternoon meal at a Farga restaurant in Barcelona.

It wouldn't be clear who took the initiative for the meetings and what has been discussed but for Soriano everything is reportedly still open: from supporting passively or actively a candidate (who could be a current director or a director who left with Soriano last year) to leading a candidacy for the presidency himself.

Two options would nevertheless be excluded for the former vice-president: establishing a pact with former sports vice-president Sandro Rosell and joining a candidacy that would include current Barcelona chief executive Joan Oliver.

When Barcelona president Joan Laporta took office in 2003, Soriano became, besides vice-president, also "emergency" chief executive. Oliver was at that time one of the candidates to succeed him but didn't pass the selection procedure. The job in the end went to Anna Xicoy, who had to leave the club after last year's vote of no confidence and was replaced by Oliver.

Catalan sports paper Sport meanwhile claims that Soriano would be considering to not getting actively involved in a candidacy for the presidency. His new job at the head of an airline wouldn't allow him to find the time necessary to take up a position at Barcelona.

Read more:
Soriano: "I will take part in the electoral debate"
Who will be the next president of FC Barcelona?

Ex-president Montal avoids election involvement

Asked if he will in any way take part in next year's presidential elections, former Barcelona president Agustí Montal (1969-1977) has said in an interview with Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia that he doesn't plan to get involved:

"I never take part in the elections. I just think they should be democratically well-organized and I hope and wish that he who gets elected has the skills and the success his predecessors had."

Read more:
Bassat will not run a third time
Former candidate Angel Fernandez will not run

Guixa confirms presidential candidacy

As this blog already reported last month (read more here), Jaume Guixà has today officially announced at a press conference that he will take part in the presidential elections next year.

The 51-year old Catalan university professor, who already was a pre-candidate in the 2006 elections but was then not able to collect the signatures needed (read more here), promoted himself as a clear alternative for what he called the "laportism".

Read more:
Jaume Guixa will run for president
Agusti Benedito to run for president
Guixa confirms that he will run for president

Poll result: Who would you vote for today?

If the elections for the presidency of Barça would be today, who would you vote for?

Sandro Rosell 56,8%
Ferran Soriano 11,4%
Xavier Sala i Martín 9,6%
Alfons Godall 5,9%
I don't know 10,8%
Other answers 5,7%

total votes: 800
date poll: 29 november 2009
poll method: interviews with club members who have the right to vote by polling agency Gesop in the surroundings of the Camp Nou around the time of the league game against Real Madrid, 95% certainty, 3,5% margin of error
source: el periódico

check more election poll results here

Weekly Round-Up (1)

Starting today, we will from now on publish every week an overview of the posts from this blog on Barcelona news site totalBarca.


There are basically two crucial questions remaining before this election process can definitely lift off:

(1) what will former economic vice-president Ferran Soriano do?
(2) who will be the board candidate?

Ferran Soriano, who last week came out on top of a poll organized by probably the most popular Catalan Barcelona blog, still didn't pronounce on what his role will be in the elecions. It is nevertheless generally believed that he will not run himself but support another candidate, mainly because he's too busy with his job as chairman of an airline.

The board on the other hand has planned to start talking about their candidate after the World Cup for Clubs next month. Although Barcelona treasurer Xavier Sala i Martín still hasn't given up the possibility of leading a candidacy, first vice-president Alfons Godall would be in pole position. Former president Joan Gaspart meanwhile advised president Laporta to not publicly appoint a successor.

read the full weekly round-up here

Board secretary Cubells to become vice-president

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that it's almost certain that Barcelona board member Josep Cubells will become one of the club's vice-presidents if current first vice-president Alfons Godall is chosen as president of FC Barcelona next year.

The 45-year old Catalan lawyer, who is currently the secretary of the board and the director responsible for Barcelona's basketball team, would become Barcelona's institutional vice-president, a post occupied by Albert Perrín since last month (read more here).

Josep Cubells, who is also the chairman of the club's disciplinary commission, is one of the five directors left from the board that came to power in June 2003 when Joan Laporta was elected president of the club (read more here).

Read more:
First female vice-president for Barcelona?
Godall: "Being president would be a dream"
The Board, 6-7 Years Later

More about Benedito (2): On Laporta and Guardiola

Barcelona presidential candidate Agustí Benedito has in the past weeks given several interviews to Catalan newspapers, radio stations and television channels. This blog will give an overview of what the Catalan businessman had to say.

As a preface you can read this blog's five-parts introduction series on Benedito and the opinion piece he published earlier this month.


Laporta's reign
There are things he hasn't been able to do and there are things he hasn't wanted to do. He had a unique, historical chance to make an irreversible change but he lost track. Laporta has for some reason deviated a lot from the model of the Elefant Blau [former barcelona opposition group] and has been losing control lately.

In the seven years before he became president we had talked and discussed a lot about how the club should be led, about our model, what we wanted to change. On crucial themes, he hasn't been able to push through what we wanted.

We're then talking about transparency, especially the communication with the club members, about honesty and about participation, ways to get the club members more involved. There he failed.

In general, he clearly passed the test. I would give him a 6. But regarding certain issues, that were very important back in the days, he failed. So there might be some disappointment from my side, especially because most of this happened because he didn't want to change certain things. But where Laporta failed, there we will succeed.

If I will win, I will of course lift the veils of the Laporta era. It will be an exercise of transparency, something the club members deserve and have been waiting for for many years. I think it's an ethical and moral duty.

Guardiola
Well, what can I say? I'm a guardiolist. He has done an amazing, incredible job, that might be unsurpassable. As a club member, I don't think there's a better way for our team to continue like they're doing now, than by keeping Guardiola in charge.

So if I could decide, Guardiola would be there for many more years. In our sporting model concerning the first team, his place is assured. But I think that will be a decision that will mainly depend on Josep Guardiola. I sure think that Guardiola knows the club that well that he will be very careful not to intervene in the elections.

Salary chief executive Oliver
A possible 900.000 euros is four or five times more than the former general director Anna Xicoy, who did an excellent job in my opinion. So I think this is too much, it's disproportionate and I don't understand the change in the salary policy. If I'm chosen as the new president, the chief executive won't earn more than 400.000 euros.

Sale of the Mini Estadi site
In 2003, the promise that the team of Laporta has repeated the most was that we wouldn't sell one square meter of club property. For me, the 2003 program is still valid and so I'm against it. Club assets should only be sold in a crisis situation and that's not the case now.

Although I took part in a vote of no confidence against Josep Lluís Núñez, I can recognize that he considerably increased the assets of the club. And now I can only say that Laporta is selling what Núñez had bought.

Season tickets
Barcelona has over 184.000 club members, 100.000 of which cannot come to the stadium to watch the games, which is the main activity of the club. Some people have to wait ten years to be able to buy a season ticket.

All this should lead us to start thinking about how to deal with that. An option could be rotating season tickets, like is done by some English clubs.

Bank guarantee
We have this legal obligation, which is in my opinion a disadvantage for us compared with other clubs. As you know Barça and three other Liga clubs have decided not to change themselves in public limited companies, which means that our boards have to put down a bank guarantee that is worth 15 per cent of the club's budget while for the others it's only 5 per cent.

Of course that limits the possibilities for a lot of club members to become part of the board of directors. Because at this moment, with Barça's budget of 400 million euros that would mean a guarantee of around 60 million euros. Our candidacy has looked at it, we have contacted financial institutions to discuss things and as it's a legal obligation, we will cumply with it.

this is the second part of a four-parts serie. you can read the first part here. you will be able to read the next parts in the coming days with benedito giving his opinion, among other things, on the continuation of sports director txiki begiristain and on the plan to remodel the camp nou.

Read more:
Benedito: "It won't be a matter of two candidates"
Poll result: Can Benedito win the elections?
Barça, a 'wonderful rarity' (by Agustí Benedito)

sources:
el 9 esportiu, catalunya ràdio, com ràdio, ona fm, tv cugat, tv3