Friday, February 19, 2010

Godall and Ferrer no longer part of 'core board'

Catalan newspaper El Periódico claims that Barcelona president Joan Laporta has excluded Barcelona vice-presidents Alfons Godall, Jaume Ferrer and, possibly, Albert Perrín, from taking part in the meetings of the Delegate Commission, the club organ that meets almost weekly and takes the majority of the key decisions.

Since the election date was announced at the end of January, the Delegate Commission hadn't been organized because of the tensions inside the club ahead of the elections. Laporta has now reportedly decided that, starting today, the meetings will again take place but that the number of people allowed to assist the meetings will be reduced.

Spanish news agency EFE confirms that Godall, Ferrer and Perrín are no longer part of the Delegate Commission. Club sources explained that Laporta has taken the decision to avoid possible misunderstandings as a result of the fact that the two presidential candidates would keep on playing an active role in the highest executive body of the club.

EFE claims that the decision has caused some unrest in the board, especially amongst the directors close to presidential candidate Ferrer, with one of the affected people telling the agency: "The measure is only taken because Laporta no longer wants to have Ferrer by his side and that is why he has decided to throw him out of the meeting.

He has put Godall in the same 'pack' to give an sense of logic to the decision, but it's just an electoral move to try to limit the possibilities of Ferrer and to benefit Godall. This is just another inconsistency of Laporta. Why don't they just throw us out of the board? This maneuver doesn't make sense apart from the intention of Laporta to eliminate Ferrer."

The Delegate Commission would from now on consist of six people: president Joan Laporta, economic vice-president Joan Boix, sports vice-president Rafael Yuste, treasurer Xavier Sala i Martín, board secretary Josep Cubells and chief executive Joan Oliver.


Article 34 of the statutes of FC Barcelona deals with the Delegate Commission and reads as follows: "Within the Board of Directors, a Delegate Commission may be constituted containing a maximum of two thirds of the members of the Board of Directors, which will be made up of members designated by the President and which must necessarily include the President, a Vice President, the Secretary and the Treasurer.

The Delegate Commission will meet at the behest of the President as many times as necessary and will have the following functions:

a) To study and prepare the items that are to be subjected to the Board of Directors.
b) To provisionally adopt any decision that is the competence of the Board of Directors, when for reasons of urgency it is not possible to wait until the next meeting to be called, under the obligation that the Board will be informed of this at the immediately following session and its ratification will be obtained.
c) To make decisions regarding any matters that have been expressly delegated to it by the board of Directors and to inform about these at the next meeting of the same."


Read more:
Ferrer: "Sala started the division in the board"
Godall: "We believe in the North-American market"
Former vice-president Franquesa to support Ferrer