FC Barcelona change their mind.
Josep Maria Bartomeu, president of the Catalan club since January 2014, tendered his resignation on Tuesday, as reported by many Spanish media.
The boss and the entire management team leave their posts after an emergency meeting.
For several days, Bartomeu had been under the threat of a motion of censure from the socios.
A vote of no confidence would have taken place on November 1 and 2 if he had not resigned.
"The idea of resignation has never crossed my mind," he said yet again this Monday.
The president of Barça pays the last turbulent months within the club blaugrana.
The coup de grace was the sporting failure of last weekend in the clasico against Real Madrid (3-1).
Lionel Messi's Barça will therefore play on Wednesday night the shock of the Champions League against Juventus of Cristiano Ronaldo (absent because positive for Covid-19) without a president at his head.
The Messi case was undoubtedly the real trigger for the announced end of Bartomeu, six and a half years after his appointment to replace Sandro Rosell, another disputed president.
The Messi affair and the "Barçagate" will have left traces
This summer, the six-time Argentinian Golden Ball expressed his desire to leave Barça after having played there his entire career.
The disagreements between the star and her president are common knowledge.
And Messi had not stopped the criticism in the press, even when he announced his final intention to stay at least one more season (his contract is concluded next June).
An episode that left traces within Barça.
Just like the story of "Barçagate" last winter.
Bartomeu was then accused of having hired an external company to criticize, via fake accounts, his players on social networks.
Six club leaders then called for the president's resignation.
And the iconic defender Gérard Piqué was also publicly moved about this affair.
" It was time.
The path to Barça's reconstruction is opening up, ”exclaimed Joan Laporta, president of FC Barcelona from 2003 to 2010. Elections will be called in the coming weeks.
