offpitchJordi Majó, pre-candidate for FC Barcelona’s presidency, has stated that “the wars between the two families are one of the reasons why I decided to run, we’re tired of fighting, it is Barça that suffers.”
“In the last two stages the club has been governed by families who started together in 2003. Apart from Jordi Farré and I, all the other pre-candidates are those who started together then and have fought amongst themselves at Barça’s expense. I don’t want to criticize, you don’t gain anything by speaking of the past, but I will say what I think,” he added.
Majó also stated that “we don’t have an electoral program, we have a management program. The important thing is what you do, not what you say. We’re tired of the pre-candidates speaking nicely and worrying about the socís during the campaigns only to break their promises once they’re in office.”
About the first team, Majó said that “we’re very happy and proud of our team. We have the best player in the world and great players around him, but there is a part of the management that isn’t connected to the first team. These elections should be more about management than football.”
“I don’t care about having the biggest or second biggest income in football, what we have to prioritize is profit,” he noted. “I don’t say this in a pejorative sense, but if you don’t sign Douglas you have enough money to maintain all of the club's non-professional sections,” he added.
“Laporta has presented a lot of names, but not a program and those mediatic figures won’t work for the club without compensation and I think that presenting these people in excess is similar to wanting to buy goodwill with Barça’s money, it’s not the best way to start,” Majó said.
“Most of the candidates want a clean campaign, some won’t do this and people will have to choose,” he indicated.
Season tickets, Éric Abidal and the Managing Commission
About the prices of the season tickets, he said: “If we have the income and profits we want we could lower prices. We will try to do that.”
Asked about Éric Abidal being a part of Laporta’s campaign, Majó said: “I spoke to Abidal three times, thinking that he had a good relationship with Platini and that he could represent us well at UEFA, we had a deal and he was the person we had for this position. After some days, he sent me a message telling me that he belonged to the club and not a candidacy. After a couple of days, I found out he was going with Laporta. If I win he will still have the offer for that position, but I have to explain what happened.”
“One of the first things I would do is to propose to the Assembly to withdraw the case against Laporta and his former board, because I don’t think that things were done right with this and I know that some of those accused did nothing wrong,” he explained.
Majó then spoke of the actions of the Managing Commission: “Some of the decisions seem right, others wrong. I think that there are some operations that were set in place before the former board resigned and it's ok that they’re completed, but if they want to sign a €90 million player that’s not right.”
He also added that “there have been some decisions that were made up as they went along, they’ve changed the rules for giving the signature, like the one about needing a valid ID card when it turns out you can register with the driving license. You get the feeling that there’s a certain degree of improvisation. I don’t want to criticize them because I know it’s hard work, but this is confusing.”
After Laporta called him an “inexperienced” candidate, Majó answered: “when they elected him he was also inexperienced. There’s no one that is born with knowledge. In any case if there’s anyone who is inexperienced at company management it’s Mr. Laporta, so the best thing he can do is be quiet.”
He also noted that Bartomeu shouldn’t be running: “If I was on trial I wouldn’t present myself for elections with the possibility of going to jail in a few months. I hope that doesn’t happen because it would also affect Barça. It’s very serious that the club is actually on trial.”
The electronic voting and sporting plans
About the date of the elections he said that it’s not a good day: “It’s a Saturday in the middle of the summer, with no football at the stadium. For people from outside Barcelona it’s going to be complicated.”
“Even if we don’t win, the electronic vote project should be followed through because it’s the answer in the quest for transparency in voting, to making referendums cheaper, to consulting the socís more. The Scytl company has studied it with its legal team: the Catalan sports law does not include anything about it, therefore it is not prohibited. We could try to change that law. It’s a system used in countries like the USA, France, Norway,” Majó stated.
“The board should not handle the day to day activity of the club, there should be directors hired for this, good professionals. The board should have a strategic plan and follow the activities,” he said.
Majó also spoke about his proposed sporting director, Michael Laudrup. He said the Dane left Barça because “he was kicked out, not because he wanted.” He recalled that later Laudrup was part of an homage to the Dream Team and Johan Cruyff at the Camp Nou and was well received by the fans. He added that on the 4th of July he will hold a press conference with Laudrup to explain their project, saying he considers the former player “ideal for his way of working, his connection to Barça’s culture through his way of seeing football.”
Asked about La Masia he said: “The man responsible should be one who has Barça DNA, who gets along with the sporting director. We have the names of scouts and coaches, but we haven’t assigned specific jobs. Jordi Gonzalvo will explain more at a later date.”
Majó also said that he is especially proud of his projects for the women’s teams: “We will create a women’s team for indoor football and improve the basketball one.”
About his previous comments regarding Leo Messi he said: “No one should be above the club, each person should do his job. Messi is the best player in the world and does his job very well. Faus should do the same.”
About his relationship with Catalunya should he be elected Majó stated: “Barça will respect the democratic decision of the Catalan people at the polls and will always back the president of the Government. We will never deny being Catalans and ‘Catalanists’.”
As for the economic side of things, he said that he would renegotiate the deal will Nike because he thinks that Barça is too constrained by it and that the American company has too much authority over matters that should only concern the club. He also stated that Qatar Airways is not a good sponsor for the club because it doesn’t represent its values and said, without naming names, that his candidacy has other sponsorship offers.
Jordi Majó also presented his project for the basketball section of the club, saying “this is very important for us.” The two figures guiding this project are Francesc Perarnau and Xavi Fernández. Perarnau said: “We’re very worried about the situation of the basketball section and we’ve been working on a project for months. We want the team to be at the level it deserves, winning titles, and we’re also worried about women’s basketball and the academy and a structure that must be professionalized.”
He added: “In the structure there will be an assistant sporting director, an academy director and we will create a sporting commission and a cheering commission who will try to increase the attendance at the Palau. We want every game to be a party.”
Perarnau also said that: “We want the basketball section to generate its own income. Right now it only generates 10% of its income and that’s not right.”
For the women’s basketball team he announced that: “We have a contractual agreement with Uni Girona, the league champion, to wear Barça’s colors in Europe and we will have to agree on the name of the team.”
Xavi Fernández, the proposed sporting director, said that: “It’s not about improving the basketball section, but making a basketball club. The income aspect of this section is very important.”
He added that they’re not counting on Xavi Pascual in the future: “With all the respect and recognition for everything he did for the club, Barça is finishing a cycle now. We have to start fresh.”
