La Liga giant, Barcelona have announced that sufficient signatures have been confirmed to proceed with a vote of no confidence in the club’s president Josep Maria Bartomeu.
A sum of 20,687 members supported the motion and on Thursday the Catalans disclosed that the minimum threshold of 16,250 sufficient to move the process on had been deemed authentic.
As soon as the final results are presented and a period of review passes, the board of directors will have between 10 and 20 working days to schedule a day for the vote.
A statement from Barca read: “Pending the final closure of the validations process, this Wednesday, October 7, the cutoff of the 16,250 valid signatures necessary for the vote to succeed was exceeded.
“Once the panel makes the final result official and the vote of no confidence is admitted, a few days will be taken to attend to the resolution and the claims of the census, and then the board of directors will have a period of no less than 10 working days and no more than 20 to call the vote.”
The motion gained massive support in August, when Lionel Messi announced his desire to leave Barca in the wake of their 8-2 Champions League quarter-final massacre at the hands of German giant Bayern Munich.
The club brought forward planned presidential elections to March, but Bartomeu could now be ousted in advance.
Barca vice-president Jordi Cardoner disclosed in a news conference: “Despite the many things that have been said and written, this board is a team. We are all together.
“We are with president Josep Maria Bartomeu in the tough times, as we are going through now. There is uncertainty around at personal level but also in regards to health. We don’t know how we will be tomorrow.
“However, more than ever, we have the unity, the effort and the credit, the credit that many memberships gave us. We will individually give our best and we will be responsible until the last day that the president and his board are in charge. That’s it.”
Messi ended up staying at Barca, claiming that club president, Bartomeu made it “impossible” for him to do so by going back on his word to let him go for free.
However, the six-time Ballon d’Or winner only remains under contract until the end of June.
More questions were asked when the club allowed Luis Suarez transfer to Atletico Madrid and failed to buy a replacement striker before the close of the transfer window.
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