The Catalan Cave: Miquel Pellicer (El Mundo Deportivo)

in this section, we ask catalan and spanish sports journalists five questions about the elections for president of fc barcelona. today: miquel pellicer from catalan sports paper el mundo deportivo.


1. On Monday 25 January, Alfons Godall announced that he will run for president. A man who has always been on the second row, and whom many people didn't know very well, is now giving interviews on an almost daily basis. What impression did he leave in those three first weeks in the limelight?
Alfons Godall bases his candidacy on continuing the current board project, which means that the trophies are his primary backing and that might be the strategy to follow in this campaign. However, Godall should get out of the shadow of Laporta, his 'older brother' and main defender, and get rid of a certain sense of provisionality that hangs over his campaign, given the rumours about his alliance with Ferran Soriano.

2. Rosell's decision not to speak until the formal calling of the elections is the right one?
It's obvious that the strategy of Sandro is defined by a large team of advisers and his campaign seems planned millimetre by millimetre, minute by minute. For now, the polls say he's the big favourite and both Alfons Godall and Xavier Sala Martín insist that he should come out to explain his program. It seems a paradox, but with his strategy, Rosell is getting more attention from the media. One should also take into account that Sandro is already appearing in public for a while - through events, conferences, interviews and so on - and in advertising and marketing it is said that you often communicate more by doing things than by talking.

3. Jaume Ferrer will arrive at the final vote on 13 June as the head of a candidacy?
We should keep in mind that before 13 June there is a key moment with the collection of the signatures of club members. The mergers between candidacies will lead to the fact that we will only have two or three candidates on 13 June. The diversity of brands, names and projects is only interesting for few people.

4. A few weeks ago, you interviewed Ferran Soriano. What kind of person is he?
A person who has the very big responsibility to stabilize a company like Spanair and who, no matter if he will run or not in the next elections, is very eager to explain things he did not explain when he left the club in 2008. We are all waiting to know his intentions and his next moves.

5. There is a lot of talk about the fact that the elections will be "2.0 elections". You are closely following the new technologies. To what extent and how can social networks like Facebook, Twitter and others play a decisive role in the campaign?
Over 120.000 club members of Barça are going to decide on the next president of the club. It's obvious that not all these people have Facebook or Twitter, for example, but it is a fact that all of them have children, parents, relatives, friends or acquaintances who are involved in those social networks. Therefore, these elections will serve as an example to update the electoral campaigns and strategies to be followed by political parties for the upcoming elections for mayor of Barcelona, the Catalan parliament and even the next general elections for the Spanish government.

Furthermore, I hope that the communication strategies will later be used to set up a club that is up-to-date regarding 2.0 communication so the members from all over the world can be heard wo we can have in the end a club model that is more global.

Thank you for this interview and your time. Good luck in covering the elections.


read the previous episodes of this series:
francisco ávila (efe)