Time may have run out on the Barcelona president and his board.
The votes have been counted and verified and the result is that Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu, and the rest of his board, will face a vote of no confidence.
According to Sport, the required 16,521 signatures have been reached which means that the current board may be ousted before elections are set to take place.
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Mes que una Mocio, the group behind the campaign, also sent out a post confirming the news.
With the signatures verified, the next step would be to hold a referendum which might not be as simple at a glance as the Catalan authorities would need to approve it. It is not a given they would do so given the pandemic.
Should the authorities approve it, however, the board of directors will need to call a vote which must be held in a period of no less than 10 days and no more than 20. Once the voting gets underway, 66.6% of those votes must be against Bartomeu for him to be ousted.
Another scenario is that the board avoids all of this by simply resigning. However, given the reluctance from them to do so despite the many “opportunities,” this scenario is unlikely.
The past three seasons or so have been tumultuous for the club as a whole. Losing Neymar seems to have triggered the downward spiral in which much was spent on players who didn’t work out. The team suffered embarrassment after embarrassment in the Champions League culminating in the 8-2 drubbing at the hands of Bayern Munich.
Then the burofax in which Lionel Messi informed the club that he wanted to leave. When that wasn’t possible, he then gave an interview stating that there was no sporting project and that those in charge only tried to cover the gaps instead of actually having a plan.
Yet, despite all this, Bartomeu held firm and remained at the helm. But the club members showed that they have had enough. The only question is whether the president will sit through a vote or avoid it altogether and resign.