FC Barcelona president discusses current situation at the club to the body made up of its longest serving members
FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu spoke on Thursday to the honorary body known as the Senate, which is made up of the longest serving members of the club, an important group of people who are very much able to speak and listen from experience.
The venue for the event was the Auditorium 1899, where Bartomeu presented a report on the current situation at the club – the last time he will do so before the elections in the summer.
An ordinary session of the Senate held in the second quarter of each calendar year, is a statutory requirement. All FC Barcelona senators receive certificates of their status, and 34 new ones were presented at Thursday’s meeting,
Below we highlight the most important declarations to the Senate by President Bartomeu:
A winning club on the field
"I say that we are a winning club on the field because at the moment the first team still has a chance of success in all three competitions. We are leading the league and we are awaiting what will be a passionate semi-final against Bayern Munich in the Champions League, in which we will have the chance to reacquaint ourselves with Pep Guardiola and grant him a warm reception. Furthermore, we have the Spanish Cup Final to look forward to at Camp Nou."
"Our team is really motivated and has responded in great fashion to the challenges set at the start of the season."
"A new coach, the best forward line in the world, with Messi, Suárez and Neymar, and up to 24 transfers involved in order to put together the current squad. We needed to revamp the playing staff, to build a new Barça around Leo Mess, the best player in the world, and now we are back to our best. Now we need for this path to lead us to the trophies that we all crave and that we have close at hand."
A democratic and socially aware club
"Our social commitments are channeled through the Club’s Foundation, which is now widely recognized around the world. We have made a big effort to make our members more aware of the work of our Foundation, of which we are deeply proud. Projects such as ‘FutbolNet’, ‘BarçaKids’ and ‘We are what we eat’ have reached more than 400,000 children and young people in more than 40 countries around the world."
"In the last five years we have we have almost doubled the Foundation’s budget from 5.8 million Euros to 10 million Euros. For that we are enormously grateful to the contribution made by the first team players and coaching staff and also from the four professional sections who donate 0.5% of their annual salary to the Foundation."
An economically sustainable club
"We are a club that maintains a privileged position in the world. In just four years we have moved 24th position to second. To maintain that position we are in the midst of a institutional and sporting transformation. We have to be a solid and economically sustainable club in order to have an attractive, winning team that wins trophies and that keeps its position as leader in the world in terms of support and on social networks."