Barcelona the situation

Barcelona the situation

The Barcelona president, Josep Maria Bartomeu cleared the air which had been surrounding the Calatan as he spoke to the media and revealed everything was running smoothly and coach Luis Enrique hasn't been given any ultimatum.

Press Report:

“The principal motive to call elections is to relieve tension that the club is living, a tension that is out of proportion,” Bartomeu said. “This noise, this tension that is out of proportion inevitably affects the team, of course.”

He added: “It is a club which is functioning well. We are going to construct a new stadium and on the sporting front we are still in all the competitions.

“I ask that there is ‘fair play’ among all the candidates and we all concentrate on what is best for the club.

“It is best that mandates are completed but there has been too much tension over the last few weeks. We will continue our programme now and there will be no changes there. I have talked with the other board members but it is me that takes the decisions.

“We will seek re-election. We started in 2010 and we want to keep going.”

Sacking of Zubizarreta, Bartomeu said:

“Sometimes as president one has to take difficult decisions. I lost confidence in Zubizarreta and as I had been the one to hire him following [Pep] Guardiola’s recommendation, I decided to be the one to dismiss him.

“There are people that have associated Zubizarreta’s dismissal with the Fifa ban. I have already stated that Zubizarreta had no responsibility regarding the issue of the Fifa ban.

“He had nothing to do with those signings. Zubizarreta did very good things and others that weren’t that good but I appreciate him. However, our confidence had deteriorated. We are now looking for his replacement. The new sporting director has to know this club, our way of playing.”