Barça Needs Elections to Clean House.

2015 is upon us and we are already facing an enormous crisis with our beloved Barça. Barça’s weekend loss to Real Sociedad was followed with the dismissal of Andoni Zubizarreta as the club’s Sporting Director. Pressure is building against manager Luis Enrique and club president Josep Bartomeu, especially with talk of fallout between the manager and Messi. Without a doubt, this is the beginning of the end for this Barça board. 

When the CAS dismissed Barça’s appeal of the FIFA transfer ban, we knew heads were going to roll. Zubi was the likely scapegoat for the club thanks to his personality and his track record in the transfer market.  After Barça’s loss to Real Sociedad, he basically signed his death warrant with his comments to the media. When asked about the transfer ban, Zubi replied, "I assume my responsibility as the person in charge of the football department, but the sporting vice president at the time, Josep Maria Bartomeu, is the one who knew the situation better than anyone." The next day, the club announced that Zubi was sacked.

Zubi decided not to go down without dragging people with him. However, Zubi was correct in his statement. Even though he was the sporting director, president Bartomeu was in fact the one responsible for the Athletic Area of the Club. Yet, Zubi seems to be the one who is paying the price of this error. Nevertheless, that is enough. This board has to got to go. It’s time to call for elections, not in the summer, but now. Of course, that cannot happen so we should expect elections in the summer. My disdain for this board is no secret and there is no reason to discuss in depth the mistakes of this board during both, the presidency of Sandro Rosell and Josep Bartomeu. Graham Hunter, who wrote a marvelous book about Guardiola’s Barça, summarized the failure of this club.

In summary, recent years have seen Barcelona divorce themselves from their spiritual leader, Cruyff; cause Pep Guardiola to feel alienated then leave his post as manager; lose their elected president Rosell over the way Neymar was recruited to the club; misjudge the consecutive coaching appointments of Gerardo Martino and Luis Enrique; disgracefully mishandle Eric Abidal's contractual situation; sack Antoni Rossich, their director general; receive from FIFA a ban from the transfer market and lose at the Court for Arbitration for Sport a hopeless appeal, which was formulated simply to suspend the ban so that the club could restock the squad last summer; haemorrhage football credibility and competitiveness; alienate their best ever goalkeeper; sack their director of football and, finally, mishandle Messi so comprehensively that there is a real danger he opts to leave.

What Mr. Hunter forgot to mention was Barça selling out the club to Qatar via Qatar Foundation/ Qatar Airways, the board losing their lawsuit against the previous president Laporta and his board, lack finding a sponsor for the basketball team shirt, and there’s also the upcoming MCM breach of contract case where MCM are seeking €100 million in damages. So quite frankly, the fans are tired of this club constantly finding itself in a new scandal. Now, we have a fallout between Messi and Luis Enrique where there is talk the manager’s days are numbered.

 Messi did not show up to yesterday’s training session that was open to the public, which upset Lucho. Allegedly, Messi had gastroenteritis and could not make it but then turned heads when he followed Chelsea on Instagram. Perhaps it is a message to the board that he is fed up with the dictatorial style of Lucho, which quite frankly has not resulted in much success or a boost of confidence amongst the players and the fans. Sport conducted a poll that shows the fans are in favor of the player over the manager.

I did caution that people should not expect Barça under Lucho to be like Pep. Both may have played together but both come from different schools of thought. Pep is a Cruyff pupil while Lucho was managed by the likes of Bobby Robson, Louis van Gaal, Rexach and Antic to name a few. So it is not surprising he acts like van Gaal and Mourinho. Unfortunately, Lucho has adopted Mourinho’s toxic attitude and we saw how bad things ended up at Madrid for Mou. We are witnessing the same Mou Casillas battle at Barça with Lucho and Messi. Quite frankly, you would be insane to say Messi has to go. It would be the equivalent of Bulls fans wanting to side with the ownership over Michael Jordan during his prime, especially when voiced his opinionon what his team should do and how he would walk if his coach and Scottie Pippen were not kept. Great players need to be listened to, especially if you are building a team around them, which Barça has done a poor job thus far.

Of course, president Bartomeu is not an idiot. He will not go down in history as the man who sold Messi to Chelsea or any other team. We will see what he has to say tomorrow when he addresses the media. What is obvious is that it is time for a change. Rosell and Bartomeu inherited a great team from Laporta, while he inherited a disaster from Gaspart and Reyna. Barça were once considered one of, if not, the best team in the world. However, this team has regressed under this leadership with Barça being competitors instead of contenders, and Barça B under Eusebio are hovering right about the relegation zone. Financial stability does not mean much when you’re not winning titles and of course it is a profit when bonuses are not being paid to players for not winning titles. Everything reeks, even though they are still competing for all three titles, there is no sense of optimism anymore and they could be out of all three competitions in a couple of months. Thus, it’s time for the board to resign and call for early elections this summer while a Managing Commission takes over for the rest of the season so we can have a clean house of board, football manager, and B team manager. That’s the best way to give the fans some hope and ease the tension for now.

Rosell’s Departure Mean New Elections Must Be Held This Summer.

FC Barcelona saw its president Sandro Rosell step down and was replaced by Vice-President Josep Maria Bartomeu. For some, the end of Rosell’s era was welcomed after watching him rule the club in an unpopular fashion. Overall, Rosell’s time as club president had its share of ups and down but the era at the club was full of success shrouded in controversy. However, his final act in appointing Bartomeu his successor is not one for him to make, but one for the club members to make, and as a result, elections need to be brought forward this summer for the election of a new Barça president.

I was one of the many who never was a fan of Sandro Rosell and I am not surprised that the heat finally got to him. I previously mentioned back in September that “the fans cannot accept or tolerate a presidency that is run on broken promises and lack of transparency. Rosell should know, he was allegedly one of the behind the scenes players in Laporta’s Censure Motion. Like the old saying goes, “What goes around, comes around” and it is Rosell’s turn to sit on the hot seat and see who jumps ship.”Well he did in fact jump ship.

Rosell mentioned his final address as club president that he had endured threats directed at him professionally and personally; aimed at himself and his family. That is deplorable and is never ever tolerable and I hope the culprits are found and punished to the extreme letter of the law. Former president Laporta also encountered threats, and even attacks, from the Boixos Nois too during his reign. There are democratic means of protesting objection, and violence or threats of violence is never acceptable nor tolerable.

Nevertheless, Rosell’s era seemed to upset fans and club members which made the club seem distant and out of touch at times. Rosell’s presidency had its share of controversial moments.  I mentioned back in September some of those decisions such changing the rules in becoming a member, “Socio”, the Qatar Foundation sponsorship deal forced upon the club without members voting on it first, outsourcing Barça TV to Madrid based company that turned out to be a bad idea when a video leaked Xavi’s off the record comments about Real Madrid which embarrassed the player.

Another issue of content was Rosell’s interest in exacting petty revenge against Laport and Cruyff, the two men who he never got along with and resulted in him  stepping down as Vice-President after the conclusion of the 2004-2005 season. His beef with Cruyff was an embarrassing moment for the club after the fallout for refusing to acknowledge the honorary president title bestowed upon by Laporta and that the club had neglected to make payments to Cruyff’s foundation that was finally paid this season. Some attribute these factors as part of the reason why the club’s most successful manager, Pep Guardiola, decided to walk away from the club.

There is also the disappointing treatment of its players during his time. Both Abidal and basketball player Pete Mickeal were let go after being told that they would be welcome back after conquering their serious medical problems. Furthermore, David Villa was sold for a low transfer while they dropped the ball with up and coming star Thiago. Rumors have it that the club’s greatest goalkeeper of all time, Victor Valdés, is also leaving because of differences with the club. However, Vice President Javier Faus’s recent comments that he did not believe Messi’s contract should be improved was indeed an embarrassing black eye and painted a poor picture of the club.

For all Rosell’s flaws, the club still continued to be successful on the pitch and did make strides with regards to social media. Furthermore, Rosell did bring financial stability to this club and its coffers but there are doubts since some dispute how badly the club was in debt by the time the time he took over. It wouldn’t surprise me if the next regime also investigates this regime’s finances in the future. Some also wonder if the club’s positive finances is more because the club gutted other sports sections of the club such as the basketball team which is one of the biggest clubs in Spain and Europe but remain sponsor less on their kits.

In the end, Rosell was his own worst enemy with many unpopular decisions and controversy such as being under investigation in Brazil thanks to his ties with Ricardo Teixeira, the former Brazilian Football Confederation president; his ties with Viagogo company which is a company allowed to resell Barça tickets; not allowing free admittance to children in El Clasico this year; his ties with the hooligans Boixos Nois, the ones who attacked Laporta, after the Grada joven project in one of the stands of the Camp Nou fell through amidst police objections, and allegations of impropriety in the Neymar transfer. He also had a knack of not presenting himself well when addressing the media with embarrassing comments such as the elimination of color copies to save money and indicating that the club was struggling to pay wages just painted a poor image of the president.

Rosell promised us transparency as club president and yet nothing was ever transparent when he was in charge. However, his era has ended, or so it seems. Josep Maria Bartomeu is now the acting president and it seems that Rosell’s project will continue to be carried out till the term ends in 2016. I met Mr. Bartomeu once during the dinner hosted by the Penya a few years and he was very friendly and courteous. He sure did receive a lot of praise for his demeanor and style in talking to the media the following day after Rosell’s farewell speech. However, action speaks louder than words and he has the rest of the season to audition for this position.

I said audition because this new president Bartomeu should not be allowed to run the club till 2016. Sandro Rosell was elected by the members as the club’s president. The members should be the ones to choose who should be the next president or Bartomeu will forever be considered a puppet for Rosell and will never be taken seriously. If he believes he is worthy of being Rosell’s successor, then he should run for the position himself in the summer. When former presidents Josep Lluís Núñez and Joan Gaspart resigned, their successor only lasted till the end the season before elections took part. That same protocol should apply here. Lest we forget that, it was Rosell who opposed Joan Laporta’s appointment of Cruyff as honorary club president without the club members voting on it. The club belongs to the members and they should choose who should run it.

Thus, Mr. Bartomeu has till the end of the season to win over voters. He has the upper hand against any would be potential candidate. His actions from here till the end of the season will paint a picture of what type of president he will. However, the members should be the ones who decide who should be Rosell’s successor, not Rosell. Elections have to take place this summer.