Barcelona Responds After Call for Vote of no Confidence is Lodged Against The Board
Barcelona have responded to the call for a vote of no confidence against the club's board via their official website.
Agusti Benedito, a former candidate for the Barca presidency, has started the procedure by officially requesting ballot papers from the club's office, leaving them with five days to produce said documents.
Benedito, who ran for the top spot in both the 2010 and 2015 elections, will then have 14 days within which to collect the signatures of 15% of the club's members, which works out to around 16,500 individuals.
The sale of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain has particularly upset the ex-candidate, and he also believes that current president Josep Bartomeu's handling of the Brazilian's tax evasion case warrants resignation.
"This board has done a staggeringly bad job," he said to ESPN upon exiting the Camp Nou following his request. "Bartomeu should resign, he is out of control. We are facing a really important institutional crisis and must act.
"He agreed to condemn the club for a tax offence and paid a fine of €5.5 million. He did that to save himself and [former Barca president Sandro] Rosell from prison."
Former president Joan Laporta and Toni Freixa, who were also candidates in the 2015 elections, also support Benedito's stance. But the final say will be up to the club's members.
If the vote of no confidence gets past it's current stage, at least two thirds of a potential 152,000 voters must go against the board to force fresh elections.
Barca's vice-president Jordi Cardoner has since responded, assuring Benedito that he will be provided with 33,140 forms, twice as much as he needs. However, Cardoner has said that the timing of the proposed vote is all wrong.
“Now is not the right time to do it and for our part we believe that these type of events are more suited to the end of season, when an evaluation, both sporting and of the Board, can be made and not when competition has just begun," the vice-president told the club's website.
“I am pleased to say that members, who are the owners of this organisation, can bring about actions such as the one began today Friday.”
