FC Barcelona communique

The FC Barcelona Board of Directors, who met remotely on Monday, April 13, in regular session, have come to the following agreements:

Remodelling of the Board of Directors

At the proposal of the President, Josep Maria Bartomeu, the Board of Directors have approved the appointment of Jordi Moix, as economic and assets vice president ; Pau Vilanova, as institutional vice president; Oriol Tomàs, as vice president of the Commercial Area; Marta Plana, as Secretary of the Board of Directors; and David Bellver, as treasurer.

Javier Bordas will be the manager responsible for the football first team, while Xavier Vilajoana will be in charge of Barça B, the U19 teams, the youth teams and women's football. The executives responsible for the Compliance Committee will be the Secretary of the Board, Marta Plana, and the treasurer, David Bellver, while Joan Bladé, in addition to continuing to be responsible for the basketball teams, will be responsible for the Control and Transparency Committee. 

The remodelling of the Board of Directors aims to not only set a new plan to overcome the consequences of the health crisis we are experiencing, but also to complete all the priority actions corresponding to the governing programme started in 2010 and the Strategic Plan 2015-2021. These are very demanding challenges, and they are of extraordinary importance for the present and for the future of the institution.

The Board considers that now, more than ever, everyone needs to be focused on these challenges and, beyond the internal debate that will be in a collegiate governing body, it is imperative to generate a very solid consensus when it come to agreeing on all the measures that must be implemented during this period.

Analysis of the different sporting scenarios

The Board of Directors have dealt with the different scenarios that are being proposed with regard to football and the other professional sports, pertaining to the return of competition. Regarding football, UEFA, ECA and LFP's approaches to restarting the league and championships have been discussed. Regarding the other professional sports, the responsible executives Joan Bladé (basketball), Jordi Argemí (handball) and Josep Ramon Vidal-Abarca (hockey and futsal) are closely monitoring the contacts with leagues and federations of those different sports.

Criminal action against Mr. Emili Rousaud

In the face of grave and unfounded allegations made by Mr Emili Rousaud, the club's former Vice President, in a number of media interviews, the Board of Directors categorically denies any action that could be described as corruption and have agreed to bring the corresponding criminal action accordingly. 

FC Barcelona cannot tolerate allegations that seriously damage the institution's image. The criminal action to be taken is in defence of the honour of the club and its employees.  Furthermore, the comments were made knowing of the existence of an ongoing audit that ought to bring an end to this matter. 

In this regard, the Board wishes to emphasise that in the light of these allegations, PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PWC), the company in charge of conducting the audit on the monitoring services of social networks contracted by the club, have reiterated that its work is still ongoing and, therefore, is without any provisional or definitive conclusions.

PWC also said that the audit could not be completed because the current State of Alarm as a result of Covid-19 has had an impact on the development of certain analytical procedures, insofar as they are procedures that must be carried out in person, and that the different lines of research that they have defined in their work have to be able to be carried out with full access to all the documentation and all the information sources requested at the club.

The Board considers that the great virtue of the audit entrusted to a prestigious company such as PWC is that it will have done a total study of all the issues related to these services, which will determine the correctness or not of the contracted services and, above all, will determine or not the existence of individually determinable behaviours that may have prejudiced the club.

The Board of Directors have agreed that, once the audit is completed, it will analyse the content and conclusions derived from it, publish them, and will make their decisions and take appropriate measures based on their final result.

Barça against the coronavirus

The Board of Directors have agreed to continue promoting all the actions that are being carried out by the club's Social Area and the Barça Foundation, to collaborate in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this sense, the Board would like to thank the contribution of a number of companies that are collaborating with the club in this fight, providing human and / or material resources.

First of all, Tencent, a Chinese internet company that, through the Tencent Charity Foundation, reached an agreement with the Barça Foundation to make a significant donation of medical equipment and equipment. Last week, the first delivery of 15,000 personal protective equipment (PPE) arrived, via the Barça Foundation, to be distributed to different hospitals and healthcare professionals currently working to deal with the pandemic and alleviate the effects of the coronavirus.

Tencent has launched a $100 million World Anti-Pandemic Fund to help curb the spread of Covid-19. The funding will be used for donations of basic and vital healthcare supplies. The Barça Foundation have agreed with Tencent to manage and distribute part of this material for Catalonia.

Also, a thank you to Taiping, a Chinese insurance company and a regional partner of the club, who made the first submission of more than 30,000 masks, which were delivered to the Ministry of Health of the Catalan Government.

Obviously, public thanks to the Red Cross for their collaboration in #StayAtHome, a programme promoted by the Barcelonista Attention Office (OAB), to accompany them and to answer any queries related to coronavirus, aimed at the 9,000 club members over the age of 80. The volunteers of the Red Cross Catalonia are providing home support to cover the basic needs of this group, whether it's food, medicine or other urgent requirements.

Since April 9, the club's facilities have hosted a sample collection point for the study conducted by the Fight Against AIDS and Infectious Diseases Foundation in the framework of a clinical trial, led by doctors Oriol Mitjà and Bonaventura Clotet and known as #yomecorono, which is intended to test a combination drug that limits the transmissibility of the virus.

As announced by the Mayor of Igualada, Marc Castells, the club, through President Josep Maria Bartomeu, has promised to play a charity match against CF Igualada, to help alleviate effects of Covid-19 in a particularly affected area.

The Board also wants to highlight the set of initiatives carried out by the entire supporters club movement, coordinated by the World Confederation of Supporters Clubs, in collaboration with the club's social area. Of the actions promoted by this group, it is worth mentioning all the contributions that are being made to the Food Bank.

Finally, the Board wants to reiterate that the club is at the disposal of the authorities to continue collaborating in the fight against this pandemic. As a benchmark institution, we have a social responsibility and we want to continue to exercise it.

Approval of new penyes

The Board of Directors have approved the creation of six new supporters clubs, two in Catalonia and the Catalan Countries and four internationally. The complete list of the new supporters clubs approved is as follows:
  
Penya Barça Collioure Les Templaires
Colliure
FRANCE
EMPORDÀ FEDERATION - NORTH CATALONIA
 
Penya Blaugrana Som Culé de Lloret de Vistalegre
Lloret de Vistalegre
MALLORCA - BALEARICS
BALEARIC FEDERATION
 
Penya Blaugrana de Kuwait City
Hawally - Salmiya
KUWAIT
WORLD FEDERATION
 
Penya Blaugrana de Lodz
Lodz
POLAND
WORLD FEDERATION
 
Penya Blaugrana Ha Noi
Ha Noi
VIETNAM
WORLD FEDERATION
 
Penya Barça de Basra
Basra
IRAQ
WORLD FEDERATION
   

The creation of these six new supporters clubs, four of which are international, shows the growth of the Barça brand and the worldwide supporters club movement.

With their incorporation, FC Barcelona now has a total of 1,270 penyes, of which 604 are located in Catalonia and the Catalan Countries, 518 in the rest of Spain and 148 in the rest of the world. The total census of the movement as of today is 170,568 supporters.