On 24 May, in the midst of confinement due to the covid-19, different groups of fans held an online debate on the future of Barça. To organize the meeting, a WhatsApp group was created which, over time, would end up being the communication channel in which the possibility of initiating a motion of censure against Josep Maria Bartomeu began to be articulated. “We are groups with different sensibilities. All we have in common is that we think this directive needs to be taken out. That first debate made it possible for us to get to know each other “, explains Ricard Faura, from Dignitat Blaugrana, a group made up of fans who had a Telegram channel in which they talked less and less about football and more about the club’s mismanagement. That is why they were the ones who filed a complaint against the directive following “del Bartogate”, as they call it, not Barçagate ”. “We have created a kind of operations committee with a representative of each group and there we discuss what should be done, we talk, we polish deficiencies,” says Marc Duch, of Manifest Blaugrana, a group that was born in 2014 by to control the management that is done in the club, there are those who are president ”. “We understand that there needs to be an external entity that alerts members when something goes wrong,” he explains.
Each group is different, but they all work to try to make this the first motion in history to bring down a president at Barça. The motion, which has the support of three pre-candidates in the 2021 elections -Víctor Font, Jordi Farré and Lluís Fernández Alà-, is formed by the groups Cor Blaugrana, Manifest Blaugrana, Compromissaris FCB, Dignitat Blaugrana, Seguiment FCB, La Resistència de Palau , # Noiestwitterbarça and El Senyor Ramon. Yesterday, another pre-candidate, Joan Laporta, also signed a motion that its leaders define as “the first in the history of transversal and unitary Barça”.
The origins are groups of fans who have organized in recent years, in many cases taking advantage of social media, to defend their vision of Barça, as Seguiment FCB, which came to run in the 2015 elections for defend a Camp Nou with more entertainment and facilitate travel away from home. Mr. Ramon is defined as the first think tank Barcelonist and organizes debates, while La Resistència de Palau is a group of members and subscribers concerned about the basketball team. # Noiestwitterbarça, meanwhile, is made up of different women who use this network to talk about the club, but have also organized events.
Before the Messi series, the Cor Blaugrana amateur group already had a website to start a motion once the pandemic ended, where they had received more than 2,000 samples of support, but everything changed when the pre-candidate Jordi Farré was the first to go get the documentation to start one. “It was time to be together,” says Faura. “The three pre-candidates have made a sacrifice, because if the motion succeeds, whoever wins the election would have to close a complicated exercise and would have one less year in office. It was not what they expected, but they have understood that it is necessary to act now “, he adds. Farré saw with good eyes that his step forward would become a collective project. And the motion was launched. “The groups have different work dynamics than the pre-candidates, but when it comes to work we are all collaborating,” explains Marc Duch, adding that “now is when they will begin to reap the fruits of all this work that is “He has done so far.” In the first days, more than a hundred signature collection points were sought to have the ballots and solutions to logistical problems were sought, as each signature must be delivered physically. “We have been asked to send ballots to Lyon, where there are partners, so we are looking for someone to go there for work, because sending it by mail is expensive,” admits Faura. The motion needs before September 17 16,520 signatures of members, 15% of the electoral census, to bring the process to a referendum. They, however, ask to have time until the 21st, as they consider that Saturdays should not be working days, as ruled by a judge. The club, however, does not yet consider them skilled. “The legal department hasn’t told us anything yet,” Duch complains. “Maybe they will do it when the signature collection period is over,” says Faura.
“The motion arises from the need for this term to end. So began a job to see how we could convey all this disenchantment in a unitary way so as not to shoot shots separately. It cost, but we got a historical photograph, all together. It is a movement that has been born from the most elementary base, from the partner. If you want to call it a revolution, call it a revolution, I prefer to say that the partner has put the batteries in and started working “, concludes Duch.
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