Barcelona pre-presidential candidate appeals election snub

Earlier this week, the first stage of the Barcelona presidential election race came to an end, with two candidates emerging. Joan Laporta and Victor Font will go face-to-face in the final vote, which is scheduled to take place next weekend.

Marc Ciria and Xavier Vilajoana had been pre-candidates, but neither managed to accumulate the 2,337 signatures required to progress to the final vote. However, the former believes that he should be involved, given that he presented 2,844 to the club, who ruled that 598 were invalid, which took him down to 2,247.

As per Sport, Ciria has appealed the decision of the Barcelona Electoral Board, as he maintains that he presented a total of 2,844 ballots of support from members and considers that a significant number of them were invalidated for reasons that he describes as “merely formal”. He believes that 379 of the rejected signatures are valid, and he has asked the Appeals Committee of the Catalan Federation to consider them so, which would mean that he is candidate for next weekend’s election.

Decision will need to come in the coming days

Given that the election will be held next Sunday, the same day as Barcelona’s La Liga match against Sevilla, a decision on Ciria’s appeal will need to be made as soon as possible. If he is successful, he will compete alongside Font and Laporta, who is the overwhelming favourite to be re-elected as president.

It will be interesting to see how the Appeals Committee rules on Ciria’s claim. Adding a third candidate into the mix could shake things up for the election, given that some Barcelona members that had supported Ciria, but would have had to pivot to Laporta or Font, could now come back to their original preferred choice.

The next eight days will determine who is elected as Barcelona’s next president, and while Laporta and Font are the only choices for the time being, Ciria could be added back into the mix.