Laporta achieves the suspension of article 67

Joan Laporta got a great confidence vote of the social mass. An oxygen balloon that relieves the pressure of having to resign in two years if it did not restore Barça’s positive net worth. The board also won the other big vote that conditioned the future, in this case, their personal and collective future as the entity’s managing board. The delegates accepted that article 67 be suspended, which would have forced them to cease if they did not redirect the debt to 2 times the EBIDTA. Currently, the 1,350 million that Josep María Bartomeu has left it is 8 times the EBIDTA.

The result of the vote was 265 approvals (78%) to the suspension of the article, while 54 ballots were registered with the ‘No’ and 18 blank. 337 of the 351 registered voted. The only one vote that Laporta lost It was the suppression of the Confederación de Peñas and the elimination of the privilege of being a life member of the 30 presidents of each federation.

Approved the financing of Espai Barça and the partial sale of Barça Studios, the main point of interest of the second part of the Assembly centered on the reform of the club’s bylaws; specifically, from the drafting of eight articles and the application of two transitory provisions. One of those provisions was crucial to the directive of Joan Laporta, as much or more than the triumph of your facility remodeling plan. It was the suspension of the application of the article 67 by which the board of directors is obliged to resign if it adds two consecutive years with losses and whose amount exceeds 2 times the EBITDA level.

It was so important that it occupied most of the joint exposition of the articles to be reformed and the intervention, in addition to Jaume Carrasco, the secretary of the Economic Commission. Elena Fort reviewed that this article was approved in 2013 and its effectiveness has been null, since Josep Maria Bartomeu’s board has left a wasteland: 481 million losses from the last year (plus 97 in the penultimate) and a debt of 1,350 million.

Equal footing

The current board considers it “unfeasible” to adjust to the limits of article 67, since that debt exceeds 8 times the level of EBITDA no matter how much it contemplates, in its budget for fiscal year 21-22, a surplus of 5 million. “The application of the article does not guarantee the control that is intended; those who guarantee the control are the people who carry out that management,” he said, alluding to the wasteland left by their ancestors.

“This board has the right to be able to act on equal terms with any past meeting and not be penalized for a disastrous management that it did not do,” added Fort, who promised that this suspension be “reviewed” at each meeting and revocable. . The directive informed that, otherwise, they would have to take “drastic” decisions. As drastic as resigning. Of course, on the contrary, they could avoid it by doing “strange things” such as “operations to make up or sell heritage or future sports assets and that is what we cannot afford”.

The message was reinforced by Jaume Carrasco. “If this article is applied, a meeting that gives benefits for a cause not attributable to it could be sanctioned,” he summarized, explaining that right now it threatens the virtues by which economic management must be distinguished: prudence, calm and preservation of heritage.

The peñistas rebel

The other block of debate focused on the retouching of articles 16 and 23 that affect supporters. Four federation presidents, with the argument prepared, appeared to protest and ask for a negative vote on these reformulations. The first is intended to suppress the organization of the supporters clubs in a confederation that cost the club 3.5 million euros last season and the second wants to withdraw the status of compromisario guaranteed to each federation president.

Laporta replied to the supporters ‘supporters (Elena Fort specified the annual cost of each season that the confederation has involved and the accumulated total) replying that the intention of the board is to change the formula of dialogue with the supporters’ supporters to make it more direct, “without intermediaries. “but it affected the” comparative grievance “that it supposes with respect to the partners who have” more rights. ”

Laporta revealed that during the electoral campaign the confederation ordered him to sign a collaboration agreement for ten years “so that it can be seen that you are with the supporters clubs,” said his interlocutor, who he did not identify by name. “They already did it to me in 2015,” he added, interpreting that they put “a gun to his chest.” The president, then a candidate, reserved the option to annul it if he understood that it was detrimental to the club.

“That there are 30 members of the federations who are lifetime delegates is a comparative offense with the partners. And then that these delegates are lifetime delegates and get paid, it is incongruous,” Laporta said. “This board and this presidency is honorary and free and above all we endorse 15%. It seems to me a comparative grievance that is not logical,” the president insisted.

Lost vote

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Those 30 positions were fundamental and decisive so that it did not prosper at the will of the directive. It was the only vote he lost; that is, it did not obtain a qualified absolute majority of 2/3. The triumph border was in the ‘Sì’ of 234 people. There were only 232 hands raised with the blue ballot, while 70 were counted red with the ‘No’ and 39 in white. There were ten people who did not take part in the vote.

All other votes seconded the theses of the Laporta board, such as those drafted in the code of ethics, the reduction of the mandate to five years (from the next meeting) and the possibility of processing the membership status electronically.