Soccer Slant

“Primer, el Barca” (first and foremost, Barca). That was Joan Laporta’s campaign slogan during his meteoric rise to the Presidency of FC Barcelona in the summer of 2003.

On July 6^th of this year, Laporta watched and awaited his own fate, as thousands FC Barcelonas’s socios (members) filed into the Camp Nou in a historic vote of no confidence. The results were unequivocal: 60.6% of the turnout voted against Laporta, calling for immediate elections. The result came just short of the 66.67% required to force Laporta to resign, but it still left the President in a very precarious situation. The trauma was exacerbated just four days later, when 8 of his 17 board members resigned en masse, including 3 of the 5 Vice Presidents. Among them were Marc Ingla, VP of Sporting Affairs, and Ferran Soriano, VP of Finance, two of Laporta’s most powerful and influential board members. Much to the dismay, but not surprise, of the majority of Barca’s social mass, Laporta has stated that he will soldier on until 2010, confident in his abilities to turn the ship around. Laporta, who came into the presidency with the campaign slogan “Primer, El Barca” (First and foremost, Barca), has shown his true colors – what comes first is his own ambition and ego, not Barcelona.

Oriol Giralt, the man behind the initial movement to oust Laporta, bowed out graciously. Ten years ago, however, Laporta was in Giralt’s same position, as the leader of the Elefant Blau, a platform aimed at bringing down the presidency of Josep Lluis Nuñez. Back then it was only necessary to amass more than 50%, and Laporta went on to state that if the motion received 40%, Nuñez would have to resign out of sheer “democratic dignity”. Now, ten years later, Laporta is facing a similar situation, only this time he has 60% - a clear majority – against him, his own “democratic dignity” seemingly lost after just ten years.

The fact that Laporta is hanging on for dear life should not come as a surprise. It is an open secret in Barcelona’s circle that Laporta’s real ambition is politics, and that he hoped to use his prestige as president of Barca to launch his political career. His constant forays into the political arena (often with a highly charged separatist tone) have annoyed many Barca fans, who see it as inappropriate even though many might be inclined to agree with his stances. Right now his prestige is ruined, so Laporta has nothing to lose. He is essentially clinging to one hope, that incoming manager Josep Guardiola can reverse the trend of negative results quickly enough so that Laporta can survive this season. This seems like a tall order, considering the fact that Guardiola has only 1 year of managing experience, and that came at the head of Barca’s B team, in Spain’s third division. Moreover, the squad has undergone a drastic facelift this summer, with superstars Deco, Ronaldinho, and Samuel Eto’o all parting ways.

The mass exodus of the board members is very significant, and says a lot about the way Laporta operates. With these 8 resignations, it brings the total number of board members that have resigned under Laporta to 14, out of an original group of 18. That is an astonishing number after just 5 years at the helm. One of Laporta’s main campaign platforms in 2003 was that he would “democratize” the club’s administration after over 20 years of Nuñez’s highly personalistic rule. His board of young professionals marveled audiences with their dazzling PowerPoint presentations and effective teamwork skills. This dynamic quickly evaporated, and was the main reason that 5 of the original board members resigned in June of 2005, among them Sandro Rosell, the man many tip as the favorite in any future election. In the end, Laporta became the monster that he so vehemently sought to destroy all those years ago.

In many ways, Laporta suffered from the same megalomania that consumed Real Madrid’s Florentino Perez. Early on, Laporta and his board managed to turn around a serious economic crisis, all the while forging a solid squad that would dominate European football. After the initial successes, which were due in large parts to the work of his team, Laporta began alienating some of his most able board members, notably Sandro Rosell. The influence of Barcelona legend Johan Cruyff cannot be understated. Cruyff and Rosell frequently clashed on transfer opinions, and Rosell was shocked to see Laporta (coincidently Cruyff’s personal lawyer) constantly side with the former Dutch great, who didn’t work for the club in an official capacity. While Laporta happily took credit for the club’s tremendous successes early on in his mandate, he didn’t realize that he was leaving himself open for criticism should the results abandon him. That is exactly what happened. When the squad crumbled under its own hedonistic habits, there was only one person left to blame: Laporta.

Despite the turmoil that is shaking Barcelona at its institutional core, this whole phenomenon has shown just how special the social mass is at the club. By all accounts, it was a splendid celebration of democratic traditions, and the turnout was exceptionally high given the circumstances. Roughly the same number of voters showed up ten years ago for Laporta’s own initiative, but that came in March, on a day that Barca played Real Madrid at the Camp Nou. This time, the vote was held in the middle of the summer, with many people enjoying their vacation time. It’s proof that there is something to the famous notion that Barca is “Mes que un club” (more than a club). The passion felt for Barca isn’t the vocal, inflamed passion you see in other clubs. It is in an inner, austere passion, treating Barca as a grave concern.

There is a great sense of responsibility on behalf of the socios, and at times it teeters on a fine line between harmful and good. Cruyff dubbed Barca’s social mass “El Entorno” (roughly, the environment). In recent comments, ex-Barca manager Udo Lattek stated that this entorno has kept Barca from winning some titles. It is, without a doubt, a debatable sentiment. What is true is that it gives Barca its peculiar flavor, and that it will have a powerful say in whether Laporta can keep his position until 2010. The extraordinary general assembly tentatively scheduled for September will be his first battleground. Everyone is expectant to see how el entorno will react to Laporta’s actions in the wake of results.