The Barça-Generalitat pulse supports Bartomeu

Josep Maria Bartomeu remains in the presidency of Barcelona.

At the most critical moment of his turbulent management of the Barça club, the leader of the Barça board sticks to his strategy of buying time while waiting for the Generalitat of Catalonia to announce a pre-announcement on the board's request to delay the referendum of the vote of no confidence.

After haggling over the sports crisis, after the confrontation last summer with Lionel Messi, settling the last year with losses of 97 million and thus conserving a cushion of 35 million accumulated gains by the current board, the president resists and does not present his resignation .

“The board will wait for the response of the Generalitat and we will meet again.

We are waiting for a response from the Generalitat to find out if the legal and sanitary conditions are in place to celebrate it on November 1 and 2, "said Bartomeu.

The plan of the Bartomeu board is to hold elections on March 20 and 21 of next year, close its last year and leave office on July 1, 2021, when the new manager would officially take office.

The budget for the 2020-2021 season was presented this Monday.

“The 2020-21 budget has been approved pending the approval of the assembly: 828 million euros, 200 less than expected.

The final profit is one million euros ”, commented the spokesperson of the Board, Josep Vives.

"We are living in exceptional times with covid-19, which affects us all," said Bartomeu.

In this exceptional situation due to the coronavirus, with no public at the Camp Nou, 19,380 signatures were validated over the 16,521 necessary for the vote of no confidence.

The first obstacle that the board put up was to file a complaint with the Civil Guard for forging signatures.

Later, the board of directors stated that, once the assembly of delegate members had been postponed (it was scheduled for October 25), the referendum should also have been postponed, which, according to the club's statutes, once the signatures were validated, Barça had time to celebrate until November 2.

“We wanted to make a decentralized vote, because there are displacement difficulties and because when more members vote, the club will be an example.

The logistics are complex.

The surprise is when on Thursday they confirm that it has to be 1 and 2. With insufficient time to do it.

That is why we ask for the postponement.

Since we don't have those days, we have to do it at the Camp Nou ”, said Bartomeu.

First, Barça argued logistical issues to postpone it until after November 15.

The Generalitat saw no impediment.

The last pretext of Barça were health issues.

The club had to distribute the election day in two days and in 21 venues to avoid crowds.

They had been proposed, 13 in Catalonia and the others in the rest of Spain, according to the geographical distribution of the majority of the partners.

But the directive did not see it clearly.

“Despite the club's efforts to design a decentralization process for voting, the delay of a week in the approval of the protocol and the worsening of the situation force us to redefine the plan and vote in a single venue (our stadium) ”, Stated the Board in a letter to the acting president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonés.

“I am interested in the club, regardless of the board, because it is the first private institution in the country, and that things are done well.

We should not lower the security measures for the Barça partner because he has specific characteristics.

What I would ask is that the measure of a venue goes against what security raises and that the best thing would be not to agglutinate the vote in the same venue, ”said Gerard Figueras, general secretary of sport in Catalonia.

The Board does not yet have the response from the Generalitat.

Barça, in any case, should call the referendum this Tuesday, with a five-day margin compared to November 2.

The ball is on the roof of the Catalan Government.