Josep Maria Bartomeu does not rule out resigning as president of FC Barcelona if the signatures needed to go to the polls the vote of no confidence driven against you are validated. The president has already made it known privately to some members of his board that this is a feasible possibility today. The decision, whether that or not, will be made at a board meeting scheduled for October 12 or 13, days after the board announces the final results of the validations.
The process, started last Tuesday in accordance with the club bylaws, update your data daily. Yesterday there were 7,000 signatures of partners that had already passed the cutoff, 9,521 of those necessary for the motion to succeed, with more than 12,000 still pending verification. If Bartomeu leaves office, the elections would move forward and the current board of directors would not exhaust her mandate as planned when the elections were announced for the month of March.
Bartomeu’s motives are various. First of all that the reaction contrary to your management It has exceeded its forecasts, especially considering that the pandemic imposed conditions that made it difficult for the opposition to mobilize. Secondly, facing a vote of no confidence, despite requiring a percentage of 66.6% to cause the resignation of the board, would imply a very complex call to the polls, both due to the current health situation and the additional cost that would mean for the entity. Calling elections twice (provided that the health authorities approve them), in just a few months, would be “subjecting a perfectly avoidable stress” to the partner in the opinion of some manager. Being the first president in the history of the entity to fall by a vote of no confidence does not encourage continuing to lead the club, especially when the risk of losing exists: to recruit the favorable vote to the continuity of those who are when their mandate already expiring in March is not an easy task.
The vote of no confidence
The table has considered valid 7,000 signatures of partners opposed to the directive and 12,000 remain to be verified
The scenario resulting from a short-term presidential resignation (the no-confidence vote table has ten business days, until October 9, to validate the signatures) has many derivatives, all of them complex and with social and economic implications. That is why there is still debate within the board about the path to take.
If Bartomeu and his board resign, a Management Commission will be set up, the chairman of which would be the current head of the Economic Commission, Carles Tusquets. The Manager would have three months to call the elections. Meanwhile, decisions could not be made that exceeded the scope of administrative routine.
Failure to comply with the last season of Bartomeu’s mandate would imply an unprecedented closure of the accounts corresponding to last season, especially when the resignation occurs before October 25, the date chosen for the assembly of partners to approve or reject the numbers presented . The assembly, however, is still pending to receive the approval of the Generalitat due to the health situation, so the most likely scenario could lead to a provisional approval of the accounts, already audited and without reservations, as well as the budget of the present of the course, in the absence of submitting to the vote of a subsequent assembly already with the incoming board. Last season’s losses due to the economic effects of the coronavirus are estimated at 94 million euros.
The entry of a new president in the middle of the season (at the end of December or January, for example) would force the incoming board to close the fiscal year started by the outgoing one, probably inaugurating its journey with an audit to check the status of the accounts. before taking them to the vote of the assembly.
Economic issue
Finalist candidates for the elections should commit to endorse 120 million euros
The finalist candidates who stand for the elections (not the pre-candidates) must sign a document in which they commit to financially endorse their mandate in case of victory at the polls. The budget for next season, prepared by the Bartomeu board in the absence of approval, will reach 800 million euros, so the guarantee, equivalent to 15% percent of that amount by statute, would be 120 million.
The new managers (and the current ones) could receive good news soon: the CSD has on the table the request for a moratorium that Athletic, Madrid, Barça and Osasuna, clubs that are not public limited companies, presented so that their managers do not have to endorse with their patrimony the losses derived directly from the pandemic. But if the CSD does not row in favor, the amount of the guarantee could be increased at the end of this season in the face of further losses.
The Bartomeu board does not fear a liability action because it accumulates benefits of 211 million in ten years.
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