The volume of the electoral campaign for the presidency of Futbol Club Barcelona went up several decibels on Monday with the presentation of the candidacy of Joan Laporta, the last to enter the fray of all the aspirants to lead the Barça club, and the best positioned to return to the role he held between 2003 and 2010. With the entry of Laporta, there are now nine candidates for the presidency of the club and, after the non-presentation of Juan Rosell, everything suggests that it will be a straight duel between the former president and Víctor Font. For now, it doesn't seem that Freixa, Benedito, Vilajoana, Rousaud, Farré, Fernández Alà or Riera have real chances, and some of them will even fail to make the first cut, which requires signed endorsements from a certain number of club members to be presented in order to be considered an official candidate.
Laporta's presentation coincided with the withdrawal of Juan Rosell, the former president of the CEOE business association, who, as part of a candidacy he claimed was apolitical, aimed to pull in the support of the Barcelona establishment and, with support from former president Joan Gaspart, to become a third contender. Rosell will not, in the end, be running, either because he balked about passing the signature test or out of fear of defeat. Although from now until 24th January, when the elections are to be held, there are almost eight weeks, with an intense campaign and several candidate debates planned, the campaign itself began on Monday with the decision to step forward by Laporta, the most emblematic president the club has had for several decades and one who led it to its most impressive sporting successes.
Laporta made a presidential presentation; humble, emotional and conciliatory, virtues that are necessary when the main goal must be to return to Barça its lost pride, bring its social mass together as much as possible, aspire to return to the path of sporting success and lay the foundations for an economic management capable of overcoming the crisis hovering over the big clubs at a time when spending easily outweighs revenue.
For this task, Laporta has secured the support of Jaume Giró, one of the few Catalan executives who has worked with annual budgets as large as 550 million euros, in all the years he was at the head of the bank-run social and cultural entity Fundació Bancària La Caixa. Giró adds an intangible factor to Laporta's candidacy that will be important in the context of the crisis, in which the club will have financial difficulties and will have to look for new income, negotiate the best possible conditions and manage a necessarily restrictive budget.
One last note: the fact that in a context as difficult as the present one, such a passionate campaign can be launched shows how important Barça is in Catalonia and the need for a symbiosis between the country and its leading reference point at sporting, social and media levels.