Barcelona confirm presidential elections will be postponed

Barcelona announced on Friday that the club’s presidential elections, which had been scheduled for January 24, will have to be postponed.

The club met with the Catalan Government on Friday morning to discuss the elections amid the current coronavirus pandemic and have decided they can not go ahead as planned.

Here’s the club’s official statement.

“The Government has conveyed to the club that the current epidemiological situation does not make it possible to authorise the movement outside the municipality to members who do not have a polling station in their municipality on January 24, given the high mobility this would entail.

“For its part, the club has stated the impossibility of holding elections on the scheduled date due to mobility restrictions decreed by the Catalan Government in the current context of pandemic, which is why the date of the elections must be delayed.

“In this sense, the club has asked the Catalan Government to evaluate the possibility of modifying the current sports legislation in order to enable voting by post on the new date of the elections, a request that the Government has undertaken to study.”

Source | FC Barcelona

At the moment it’s not clear what will happen next except that the elections will not take place on January 24 as initially expected. Catalunya Radio, report that voting by post is a process that could take up to a month.

The club announced on Thursday that there were now three candidates, Joan Laporta, Victor Font and Toni Freixa, left in the race after the validation process had taken place.

Laporta is the current favorite to be named as the next president, after collecting the most signatures, but it might still be a while before a replacement for Josep Maria Bartomeu is finally installed at the Camp Nou.