The former president, thanks to massive support, recovers the presidency of the Barça club a decade later and erases the ‘Nuñista’ ideology from the stage. He surpasses Víctor Font and Toni Freixa, second and third.
«I got up and it was raining. I went to vote and the sun came out. You will have lost things along the way, but it does not set you back. Joan LaportaAt 58 and more than a decade after leaving the Barça armchair (2003-2010) in search of a political dream that was not, he will again preside over Barcelona. With 100% of the votes counted in elections in which the pandemic did not prevent a massive turnout (55,611 voters, 50.42% of the electoral roll), Laporta fulfilled the forecasts. With 30,184 votes (54.28%), he deleted Toni Freixa (4,769 votes, 8.58%) and with him to the traditional power of the nuñismo, and left Víctor Font far away (16,679 votes, 29.99%), swallowed up by the neatness of his organization charts power point and doomed for the support psychophonic of Xavi Hernandez from Qatar. Who did appear on stage was Leo Messi, even if it were simply by exercising their right to vote. It was the fist time I made it. But it was more than a gesture. Less than four months after the end of his contract, not just any candidate was working for him.
The partners of this Barcelona dragged by the directive and executive leadership of Josep Maria Bartomeu to sporting, economic, institutional and moral misery, with the Bartogate As a decrepit end of the party, they have offered the order of the rescue to Laporta. Without hesitation. Perhaps remembering that under his presidency the first soccer team experienced the best years in its history (12 titles, including two Champions League and four Leagues). Of the Barça of Rijkaard Y Ronaldinho happened to Guardiola Y Messi. And also leaving aside the voter those excesses at the end of the journey that preceded the long dominance of the bartorosellism (2010-2020).
Laporta was the most efficient candidate in an eternal, low-profile campaign. “Zero errors, I close corrections.” A mantra that he tried to follow to the letter. But he had already won the elections. He did it the same day he unfolded a canvas next to the Bernabéu that covered his opponents, convinced the skeptics and reaffirmed his supporters. But now he will have to show that, beyond his staging in the debates, he can also be the best president in the worst possible scenario.
To prevail at the polls, he knew how to follow the campaign plotted by his advisers to the letter, based on careful containment and optimism in the messages. Everything was said with a smile. Laporta spent four months reciting the same phrases over and over again. Without ever losing the thread or the composure. “His ability to internalize, memorize and recite speeches is incredible,” admits one of his team members. This helped him to move away from extreme positions and move closer to the center, suppress Font’s technocracy and even win more court votes. eighties and that in other times they would have disowned him. Laporta never charged against his predecessors. Neither did he firewood from the judicial scandals, nor did he take pleasure in the Bartomeu scandals, on Tuesday in the dungeon, on Sunday in front of the ballot box at the Camp Nou.
Convinced pro-independence and good friend of the former president Carles puigdemontIf Laporta spoke of politics, it was only to say that his Barça “is everyone’s.” The political imaginary in the campaign scenography was null, without flags other than Barça and without public presence of the sovereignist associations. If he spoke of the sports area, it was to give confidence to those who already are, not those who could reach. He promised to convince Messi not to flee in June. Even if it’s “with a roast.” Laporta only had to be a little more explicit on the economic side, announcing a double bond issue that should allow the club to pay its payroll in May. With the ghost of the vulture funds always on the stage.
The voter perhaps remembered that Laporta, in 2003, already allowed the resurrection and subsequent construction of the best Barcelona in history. That was a club that entered Joan Gaspart Y Enric Reyna they had also left on the brink of bankruptcy. Although there are differences. Before the bonds of the environment were broken and new years of underground struggle for power began, Laporta had activated that virtuous circle with Ferran Soriano -of whom Víctor Font is heir- or Sandro Rosell -whose postulates Toni Freixa collects-. Laporta’s main travel companions in this new stage will be his intimate Rafael Yuste, called to be the sports vice president again, Mateu alemany, who was the general director of Valencia and former president of Mallorca who will now be in charge of the football executive area, or Jaume Giró, former general director of the La Caixa Banking Foundation and who will bear the financial responsibility of the entity. Maria Elena Fort, the only woman on his board, will be another of the great references of his mandate. She was a director in the last Laporta mandate and a JxCat deputy in the last legislature.
«Ho tornarem a fer» [«Lo volveremos a hacer»]. Laporta was inspired by the words spoken by Jordi Cuixart, president of Òmnium, in the judgment of the you process. He will have time to prove it until July 1, 2026, the date on which the mandate that opens an era will expire.
Laporta, visibly moved on his way to the Auditori 1899, gave a first speech as president-elect in which he demanded the unity of all the families of Barcelona. He himself had already embraced Víctor Font and Toni Freixa in an unprecedented image in a club so given to cainism. He remembered, of course, Johan cruyff. And closed the night paying homage to Kennedy: “Don’t ask yourself what Barça can do for you, but what you can do for Barça.”
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