BAKKACIMA BLOG

  With the entire board,  Barcelona  president Josep Maria Bartomeu has resigned  from their posts. The president had been due to officially end his tenure next year, with elections called for March, but the club's members called for a vote of no confidence in an effort to get Bartomeu out immediately. A total of 20,687 votes were gathered for the motion against Bartomeu, passing the threshold of 16,250 signatures required for the vote to go ahead.  The Barca board repeatedly tried to postpone the vote but, on Monday, local authorities rejected the club's push to delay the proceedings.  As a result, the vote was set to go ahead in the coming weeks, but will no longer be necessary as Bartomeu and the board have stepped down. Bartomeu said on Monday that he believed that Messi could lead Barca to titles this season, admitting that he could not let the Argentine leave for the good of the club.  And now, it is Bartomeu that is leaving, as he ends his time ...

Lionel  Messi has spent the last 16 years of his illustrious career at Camp Nou, but there is a clause in his current contract which permits him to leave at the end of any season should he choose to do so. A number of off-field issues have overshadowed Barca's latest campaign, with a public spat between Messi and sporting director Eric Abidal over Ernesto Valverde's sacking in January marking the lowest point for the club. At the moment, it has been reported that the highly prized asset is ready to call time on a historic spell in Catalonia when the transfer market reopens due to all the controversy, with Inter mooted as a possible next destination.