Vote of no confidence in Barcelona president Bartomeu to go ahead as socios reach required amount of signatures

A vote of no confidence against Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu is set to go ahead after club members reached the required amount of signatures for the motion to go through.

A total of 20,687 names were submitted against the club president on September 17, with the validation of those signatures having started on September 29.

At least 16,521 confirmed votes (10 per cent of total members) were required for the motion of censure to be put into motion and Goal can confirm that the number of validated signatures has now exceeded that amount after nine days of counting.

It should be added that all of the original 20,687 votes must be checked before moving forward, which is expected to be completed before October 10.

Once that is out of the way, Barcelona will have 10-20 business days to find a date for a presidential referendum. It is unclear at this juncture as to when the referendum will take place, but it is thought that it will not be any earlier than mid-November.

In the referendum itself, 66 per cent of votes will be required to oust Bartomeu from his position.

The motion, which is backed by presidential candidates Victor Font, Jordi Farre and Lluis Fernandez-Ala, as well as eight Blaugrana fan groups, comes in the wake of Bartomeu’s perceived poor handling of the club’s affairs.

Indeed, several dreadful transfer windows have seen the club’s on-field quality drop drastically, with the exit of Neymar to Paris Saint-Germain in 2017 an early catalyst for the troubles at Camp Nou.

A plethora of different managers have struggled to provide consistent positive results with the players at their disposal, with the big-money signings of Philippe Coutinho, Ousmane Dembele and Antoine Griezmann largely seen as failures.

The club’s troubles – on and off the pitch – are bad enough that Barca captain and six-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi had been pushing to leave the club in the summer, only to be denied due to the wording of an exit clause that allows the Argentine to leave at the end of any given season.

New boss Ronald Koeman has largely delivered positive results since taking over in the Camp Nou dugout from Quique Setien in the summer.