The board of directors of Bara demands Bartomeu to call elections

An important sector of the management team demands the progress of the elections after the scandal of the 'fake' accounts

• 'Fake' accounts.
  

  Bartomeu, forced to explain
  

The government of Josep Maria Bartomeu, in the eyes of the great majority of the Barcelona board, it must come to an end. According to EL MUNDO, during the informal meeting of the Barça management team held on Friday, an important part of its members, including heavyweights, raised an electoral advance to the president of the entity. The meeting, with a very tense beginning and a more relaxed end, and in which responsibilities were demanded by the call Baragate to the maximum president and, especially, to Jaume Masferrer, director of the presidency, showed the impression among the attendees of the need to advance elections to which Bartomeu cannot appear. Emili Rousaud, current institutional vice president and one of the most annoying managers with what happened in recent days, opposed to taking over. It has broad internal support.

Although for now only one decision has been taken, the suspension of employment and salary of Jaume Masferrer until the conclusion of the audit, entrusted to an external company. It was the great demand of the board. Until this auditor is not settled, the Barca president does not officially convene an extraordinary meeting – in which minutes can be drawn up, not as in this Friday's meeting – and in which executives return to claim the call for elections. Therefore, the date of that board meeting is still in the air, although it is expected to have an advance of the report next week.

At this Friday's meeting, Bartomeu never raised the possibility of resigning. The president's intention was always to resist until the end of his term, which ends in the summer of 2021. Nor did the members of his government ask him to resign, as another director admits. The scenario will happen to find the right moment for an electoral advance.

In any case, Bartomeu's explanations to the members of his board regarding the agreement signed with the company I3 Ventures, hired in October 2017 in exchange for 198,000 annually until 2021-invoices that did not go through the delegated commission to not exceed 200,000 euros-, much less convinced the attendees. Quite the opposite. The managers were the ones who demanded Bartomeu the internal auditor to get to the bottom of the matter.

According to sources of the directive, Bartomeu tried to present before his board the same arguments used before the press. That is, in no case the club hired a company with the aim of defame, among other personalities, its own players, such as Messi or Piqu.

The function of said company, whose contract was terminated by Bartomeu after the Cadena Ser showed that at least one of the Facebook accounts he used I3 Ventures To erode their own soccer players, it was theirs, the managers hardly know it. Some of them even qualified this link as “a scam”, given the high price paid for services that Bartomeu defined as “monitoring.”

Bartomeu is at the trickiest moment of his term. And practically alone.