Sandro Rosell flew back to Barcelona from Glasgow to the welcome news that critics have withdraw a proposal for a vote of no confidence in the club president.
A group of opponents had launched the process on Monday in anger at Rosell’s links with Qatar and with the former Brazilian football supremo Ricardo Teixeira.
They believed that, in line with the statutes of the club, they needed to obtain support signatures from five per cent of the membership for the proposal to be put to the full membership.
However it then emerged that an obscure Catalan law concerning the governance of social organisations, enacted in 2010, demanded an initial sign-up of 15pc of a membership to take any proposal forward. This would mean 18,000 signatures in the Barcelona case.
The opposition, grouped under the platform GO Barça, decided that obtaining 15pc would be impossible and withdrew the initial petition. Rosell expressed his satisfaction on landing back in Barcelona after last night’s 1-0 win over Celtic in the Champions League.
A spokesman for GO Barça said they were upset as not being able to challenge Rosell over “lies, conflicts of interest and lack of transparency.”
Rosell has always denied any wrongdoing and pointed out that he is not the subject of any legal action either in Spain or Brazil where he has had signficant business interests.
This article originally appeared in In Bed with Maradona
