Barça president Josep Maria Bartomeu won't let go. After Friday night's calamitous Champions' League defeat to Bayern Munich (2-8) unceremoniously bashed the final nail into the coffin on an entire era of the Catalan football club's history, the president has announced club elections for March 2021, which means that he is not resigning but rather seeing out the rest of his term. Moreover, he has decreed an immediate departure for coach Quique Setién, a first taste of urgent "profound changes" promised in the first team to "turn around the sporting situation". The decision to call elections was taken hours after an urgent board meeting in which the directors supported Bartomeu's proposal.
❗ ÚLTIMA HORA
— FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_cat) August 17, 2020
▶ La Junta Directiva decideix que les eleccions a la presidència del Barça siguin el primer dia de partit a partir del 15 de març
"BREAKING: The Board of Directors decides that the elections for the presidency of Barça will be held on the first match day after 15th March"— FC Barcelona
March is the "most viable" date
The Barça club argues that March next year is "the most viable date" for elections in order to "allow an orderly transfer to the winning candidacy, which will then have enough time to plan the new 2021/2022 season". The Bartomeu board argues that immediate elections are unviable since the start of the next Spanish league is just weeks away, in September. Therefore, they say, the existing board must itself carry out an urgent remodelling of the team for the upcoming season. There will also be a "budgetary redefinition" to deal with the consequences of the coronavirus on the club.
The board considers that March is the most viable date for elections
Setién, sacked as expected
The first major change in the team was already known about, but was made official this Monday afternoon, and it is that coach Quique Setién is no longer part of FC Barcelona. He has been sacked and it is most likely that Dutchman Ronald Koeman, current Netherlands national coach and, as a player, a star defender of Johan Cruyff's 1990s Barça, will take his place.
Departing coach Quique Setién arrived at Barça with great enthusiasm after the dismissal of Ernesto Valverde in January and has left in August via the back door. Losing the Spanish League in the final rounds, eliminated from the Copa del Rey and with a shameful and historic defeat in the Champions League against Bayern Munich. The Cantabrian coach's imprint on the Barça bench is forgettable.
Quique Setién (right) and assistant Eder Sarabia at the Camp Nou
With the idea of changing the football schema of a Barça that had become boring, he made initial innovations, but they only lasted a couple of games. From excitement to disappointment, and finally at the end of the season, after enduring the complicated coronavirus situation, Josep Maria Bartomeu and his board of directors have decided to get rid of Setién. An easy sacrifice to make, all told.
Barça needs a generational change
The situation at Can Barça remains unsustainable while Bartomeu continues at the helm. Many fans will not share the Barça board's decision to hold back elections, seeing that the generational change which is necessary on the field must also be accompanied by changes in the offices. The sporting failures of the last few years have been bad enough, but management scandals like this year's Barçagate - when the board paid a social media firm to generate bad publicity on some of its own players - paint a picture of a club that has lost its way.
Prior to the calling of elections, the club processes are such that Bartomeu still requires a breadth of club support for the financial settlement of the current season and the new budget. If Bartomeu cannot get the support he needs among the culés, he may still resign.
Lionel Messi and Sergio Busquets