Barcelona (AP) – Ex-club boss Joan Laporta wants to be president of FC Barcelona again. The 58-year-old announced his candidacy for the January 24 election in Barcelona on November 30th.
Laporta campaigned with Lionel Messi and said that if he wins the election he will do everything possible to persuade the Argentine star to extend the contract, which expires on June 30, 2021.
He also wants to end the internal disputes, said the Catalan lawyer and politician, who was club president between 2003 and 2010. “I want to unite the“ Barcelonismo ”. The “Barcelonismo” connects us. It is time to lead the team back together to success and victories, to glory, ”he said. There should be “no looking back and no reproaches”.
For months, Barça has not only been in a sporting, but also in an institutional and economic crisis. On Friday, the club and the professionals around Messi and national goalkeeper Marc-André ter Stegen agreed on a wage waiver totaling 122 million euros. The savings were urgently needed, otherwise, according to media reports, bankruptcy would have threatened as early as January. Because of Corona, the club is missing around 300 million euros. The debt rose from June 2019 to June 2020 from 217 to 488 million euros, according to the newspaper “Marca”.
In terms of sport, it doesn’t look much better: In the Primera División you are currently only in seventh place. After the 8-2 defeat by Bayern in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, Messi tried to leave the club a year before his contract expired. This caused friction losses within the club, as part of which President Josep Bartomeu resigned at the end of October.
© dpa-infocom, dpa: 201130-99-521974 / 2
