WANTED: JOSEP MARIA BARTOMEU
WANTED: JOSEP MARIA BARTOMEU
FOR RUINING ONE OF EUROPE’S BIGGEST CLUBS
It's no secret that the President of FC Barcelona Josep Maria Bartomeu is a money grabbing snake that has only led the club in one direction: downwards. Fast.
Everyone knows Bartomeu is not competent enough to run this historic club, from the faithful Barca fans who have held protests demanding his resignation, to club legends like Carles Puyol and Lionel Messi who have made their opinions very clear on social media.
Bartomeu took over as president of the club in 2014, and in the six years he’s been in charge, the club has seen four head coaches come and go and has changed sporting directors five different times. Talk about consistency!
It proves a massive point for Lionel Messi, who has been at Barcelona for 20 years and holds 20 current records at the club, to publicly ask for a transfer and try to force his way out.
Bartomeu denied Messi’s transfer request and told the Argentinian that he can only leave Barca if another club were to pay his $835 million release clause, nevermind financial fair play rules and the economic setbacks clubs currently face because of COVID.
Messi has been practically locked in Bartomeu’s cage for the time being. It tarnishes the times that he’s spent at the club that he’s won 36 trophies for, and blood is on the hands of only one man.
“The management of the club led by Bartomeu is a disaster,” Messi said in an exclusive interview with GOAL after deciding to stay. “The truth is that there is no project at this club. They just plug holes as and when things happen. I would never go for a war against the club of my life. That's why I'm staying.”
It’s understandable why a star like Messi would want to tuck his tail and move clubs after a sporting disaster like Barcelona’s 8-2 loss to Bayern Munich in the semi-finals of this year's Champions League, but that's not just the case.
Barcelona has had an embarrassing exit from European club football’s largest competition nearly every season since Bartomeu has gotten his dirty hands on the club.
In the previous Champions League season, Barcelona was knocked out of the competition by Liverpool, who was down 3-0 on aggregate going into the second leg. Barcelona only had one job, which was to not let Liverpool score four goals. And guess what: they couldn’t do it.
In 2018, Barcelona gave up a 4-1 aggregate lead to Roma, when Roma beat Barcelona 3-0 in the second leg of the quarterfinals. The season before that, knocked out by Juventus. The list of early exits from the biggest competition in Europe goes on and on.
Another example of Bartomeu’s failures can be seen in Luis Suarez’s transfer away from the club this summer. Suarez, who has been a monumental player for the club since he also arrived in 2014, was practically pushed out of the club when Bartomeu refused to offer him a new contract and new manager Ronald Koeman told Saurez that he wasn’t in his plans for the future.
Within just 6 seasons at the club, Suarez climbed to third place on Barcelona’s all time goalscoring list with 198 goals and registered 97 assists. It’s truly sad to see the blatant disrespect that a legend like Suarez received from the board of a club that he gave so much to- never mind the four La Liga titles, four Copa del Rey trophies, two Spanish Super cups, one Champions League trophy and one European Super Cup…
In Barcelona’s 121 year history, no president has received a vote of no confidence. That was until Bartomeu arrived, when 20,687 signatures signed a petition to have him removed from his position at the club. At least 16,521 votes have been confirmed against this clown, and now a presidential referendum awaits.
Bartomeus’s name will go down in Barcelona's history books, but only for being the one who turned their club into a dumpster fire. If someone doesn’t take the keys from him now, he will end up driving the Lamborghini of a club he was handed right off a cliff.
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