Barcelona presidential candidate Agustí Benedito gave an interview to Catalan online paper El Singular Digital.You were part of that project that won the 2003 elections. What went wrong that you now present an alternative candidacy?
Our idea is to recover that project, update it and renew it, because today it still is perfectly valid. The problem has been that Laporta and his board of directors have at a certain moment abandoned the road.
In what sense?
That model was based on the very clear idea that the club is owned by the club members and that leads to a high necessity of transparency, honesty, representation, ethical behaviour, integration and diversity. Laporta has distanced himself, and a lot, from these proposals during his mandate...
Go on...
Our first football team is at a unique level, unsurpassable. We must achieve that the board and the rest of the club is at the same level as the team.
Over the last years that wasn't the case?
No.
When did the decline start?
Over the last period, especially the last two or three years, when it became clear in an explicit way that the board and Laporta himself have taken an other, totally different road.
Cases of espionage, an attempt to intervene in the sale of Mallorca, compromising pictures at a Barcelona night club. But do those things matter in the world of football when the results are good?
With other sports results, the perception of the mandate of Laporta would certainly have been different. We must remember that not so long ago, in the vote of no confidence of 2008, 60,27% of the club members asked him to leave. Laporta has had some episodes where he fell short of representing an entity that is so important for this country.
Some link those attitudes to an exaggerated ego. What do you think?
He has undergone a change. The Laporta I knew when all this started is very different from the one I know today. It is difficult to know the reasons. It's surely related to personal and more intimate issues, but I am unable to puzzle them out. The only thing I can verify is that this is a different Laporta than the one I have worked with for so many years.
Personal attitudes are enough to judge his management?
In the end, it is concepts like the lack of transparency and honesty, that really show that there has been a lack of representation during his time. Just as I said that he clearly passed the test regarding the overall management of the club, in this aspect he deserves a clear fail. He hasn't been up to the mark after the support he got from the voters in 2003.
this was the second part of this interview. you can read the first part here and the third part here.
Read more:
Benedito signs ex-campaign director Laporta
Introducing Benedito
Benedito: "Rosell has a different model"
interview: xavier march
