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Joan Laporta will continue to serve as the president for another four years, as on Monday evening other candidates for the position of the Catalan super club did not gather the necessary 1804 club members' votes and after withdrawing their candidacies, new presidential elections should not take place.
J. Laporta, who won the elections in 2003, was removed from the position of president of "Barcelona" by the decision of the Spanish court in July as his term formally ended. As we have already written before, the situation where eight days were officially counted as one year of presidency arose due to the club's statute defining current years.
Due to this reason, officially J. Laporta's four-year term ended on June 30th of this year and after satisfying the complaints of several club members, the Spanish court ordered to hold new presidential elections.
In order to be able to participate in the elections again, J. Laporta and the board of directors of "Barcelona" resigned at the end of July, and the president of the Economic Council, Xavier Sala, was appointed to temporarily lead the club.
According to the established procedure, until August 21st, 21:00 Spanish time, individuals intending to participate in the presidential elections had to submit special forms with signatures of supporters to the central headquarters of "Barcelona." The most realistic competitors of J. Laporta are mentioned as Jaume Guixa, a professor at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, and lawyer Jordi Medina.
However, none of the potential candidates for the post of president was able to collect the required number of club members' signatures, and on Monday both J. Guixa and J. Medina announced their withdrawal from the elections.
Since J. Laporta easily gathered significantly more signatures, he was recognized as the winner without a fight - the 44-year-old lawyer will hold the position of "Barcelona" president at least until 2010.
J. Laporta won the presidential elections in 2003, when he defeated five other candidates in the campaign by promising to attract England's national team captain David Beckham to the Catalan club. Although he failed to lure the player and he chose Madrid's "Real," the president gained the sympathy of most fans by acquiring Brazil's national team defender Ronaldinho from "P.S.G" who is now often called the best player in the world.
In 2003, when J. Laporta took over the club, "Barcelona" was "stuck" both financially and in terms of gameplay. However, Laporta and his team not only managed to pull the club out of debt, but also put together a team that won the Spanish championship in the last two years and won the UEFA Champions League trophy in May.
