On the third day of campaigning for Catalonia's 14th February elections, it was not the politicians that were in the spotlight but Leo Messi, the greatest football player in history, and a president of the Barça club's management comittee who arrived to carry out a brief transition and has clung to his chair with an immoderation that, if the club's situation were not so serious, would be laughable. Carles Tusquets, ex-treasurer of the FC Barcelona board under Josep Lluis Núñez at the age of 27, and today a businessman and banker, according to his CV, is midway between snobbery and frustrated aspirations to glory, which has always been elusive. He lost the presidency of the Barcelona chamber of commerce to Joan Canadell against all odds, which took him away from the interests of those who, until then, had supported him, and since October 28th, when he was appointed to a position at the Barça club which was to be ephemeral, he has done everything in his power to perpetuate himself and have a role that the club's statutes do not give him.
But none of the bombs that have been exploding around him have the magnitude of the leaking of Leo Messi's contract, which, above all, seeks to discredit the Argentinian player and further amplify the destabilization of the club. That Messi has made a lot of money is obvious, but the balance sheet cannot be totalled up without also including everything he has given to Barça. Considering both sides of the ledger, the club has come out winning, in contrast with what is happening right now with many of the sacred cows in the squad, for whom huge fortunes have been paid out in recent years.
Yet, beyond the morbid attraction of the matter, the really important aspect is how a contract that was locked up under seven keys came to see the light of day, in a leak which has left several people damaged - the player himself, above all - and has some unknown beneficiary, or in the least-worst scenario, not even that, just someone very irresponsible. Coincidentally, the leak occurs in the interregnum of this endless interim committee, whose president was the first head of the entity to say he would have sold Messi in the summer. Now a newspaper in Madrid and a Catalan journalist specializing in economic information, especially from Catalonia, are giving sports news. Over the last two weeks, several leaks have been made that destabilize the Barça dressing room. And also the election campaign. Everything possible has happened except for leaving the club to make a democratic transition. I hope to know this Monday the scope of the complaint against the Madrid newspaper which the club has announced.
It all continues to be very, very curious: a Catalan High Court prevents any election postponement due to Covid-19 and forces the parliamentary elections to be held on 14th February, while a Barça interim president who could have held the club elections on January 24th if he had set up more voting centres - and also if the Catalan government had not been so timid - postpones them till March 7th. Meanwhile Tusquets plays the role of pyromaniac firefighter.