Barcelona presidential elections are set to be postponed?

According to the news by La Porteria, a Barcelona news website based in Spain, the football giants, FC Barcelona presidential elections are set to be postponed due to a recent boom in COVID-19 cases in the country as Spain is among the top countries to be hit a severely second wave of the Coronavirus, adding to that the new strains of the pandemic have been discovered in multiple countries. But these cases are not enough right now to stop football and La Liga.

But among all these rumours, FC Barcelona authority has confirmed that their presidential elections will be on January 24, despite the calls for it to be postponed amid rising cases of coronavirus.

Former Barca vice-president Jordi Cardoner, who was in favour of delaying the elections, suggested in an interview that not postponing the election would be to show “a lack of respect and an attack on the health of our members”.

But FC Barcelona’s authorities confirmed on Thursday that the date of January 24 and stated: “all procedures” have been accepted by the local authorities.

As part of a statement, Barca confirmed: “The board has also ratified January 24 as the date for the elections and that all procedures have been accepted by the Generalitat de Catalunya, in liaison with the Ministries for Health, the Interior, Sport and Procedure.

“All efforts have been made to ensure that the pre-candidates can collect support slips under the best possible conditions and with as much time as available.”

These are the first elections that are to be conducted at the club since Josep Bartomeu’s huge victory in 2016. However, a disastrous tenure of Bartomeu led to his resignation, consequentially calling for early elections at the club.

Victor Font and Joan Laporta are head-to-head competitors in what is arguably one of the biggest events in the club for over half a decade since 2015. Font even spoke to AS regarding that, saying, “We had to advance the elections through a letter, but nobody did anything. We are now in a worrying situation at the health level. What is clear is that elections cannot be held right now on January 24th.”

He seemed quite practical with his reply even after being one of the front-runners for the presidential post. Font further stated, “With the current restrictions, the right to vote cannot be guaranteed to all socios.”