Laporta, member number 13,352, will once again become president of FC Barcelona after the club’s members voted in the elections for the Presidency and Board of Directors held Sunday, 7th March).
The election day, which for the first time was held in six different electoral venues and incorporated vote-by-mail results, saw a turnout of 50.42% of the electoral roll. A total of 55,611 exercised their right to vote from the club’s 110, 990 members with Joan Laporta taking 30,184 votes.
Before the start of election day, 20,663 members had already exercised their right to vote by mail, which for the first time was incorporated in elections to the presidency, and 87,479 members could vote in person in any of the six territorial headquarters. Despite the restrictive measures due to Covid-19, the elections drew the second highest turnout in the history of the club.
Laporta was the only candidate who had previously been president of FC Barcelona, between 2003 and 2010, and was the clear favourite with 9,625 signatures ahead of Víctor Font with 4.431 and Antoni Freixa with 2,634 votes.
The challenge for the new Laporta mandate is substantial with the need to right the club’s financial situation which has been hit badly by the coronavirus pandemic and over €1bn of debt. In addition there are further issues to resolve around Leo Messi’s future.
With the elections complete, the club statutes state that the new Board must take over within 10 days of the election. Before taking charge the new board has to present the guarantees requested by the current rules. In this case the law from 10/1990 15 October for sport states that the guarantee must be 15% of the budget spend which means that the financial guarantee of the winning candidacy must be 124.6 million euros (15% of the 831 million from the 2020/21 budget). If the guarantee is not met then it will be for the Managing Commission to call new elections.
Originally published by fcbusiness.
