In Barcelona, ​​it seems, the idea has settled that to take over the management of the club you need to be a football player, and if you are a naturalized foreigner, all the better. This is a dangerous conceptual error because institutional management, in these modern times of large revenues, multimillion-dollar parallel businesses, television rights, international relations with organizations that direct football at the universal, regional or national level, constant reference to concepts related to labor law, player status, training rights, taxation, marketing and merchandising (an Anglo-Saxon word consisting of merchandise or product and the ending ing, denoting action), defined as a process involved in marketing strategy. marketing that aims to increase product profitability and consists of a set of techniques that contribute to increasing sales and profits in physical and digital businesses.

All this broad legal, administrative, financial, etc. area requires enormous preparation in various areas of sports and human activity. To run a club, you must have knowledge of business administration, which today is the subject of university specializations.

If the person who has such knowledge is a former football player, welcome. But thinking that wearing soccer cleats, going for a massage, living in the locker room and stepping on the grass is enough to sit down and organize the multiple activities of an institution the size of Barcelona (this is true for any professional institution) is a path of no return to failure.. Present idol Astillero is the best example for that.

Few leaders have managed to lead it successfully in the 21st century so far, but the worst part of the tragedy, which led to practical bankruptcy, began in 2015. It is true that the gold and crimson Titanic was already arriving with a weakened hull when José Francisco Cevallos took over, who eventually smashed him against the iceberg. An external audit, which ended on September 30, 2019, revealed a debt of $51,624,789 and an unjustified waste of institutional funds.

Cevallos’ vice president was Carlos Alejandro Alfaro Moreno, a native of Argentina, who arrived in Barcelona in 1994. He went to play abroad in 1997 and returned in 2000 to retire two years later. Their application in 2015 was based on the fact that, being footballers, they knew what needed to be done to make Barcelona a world-class club. The four-year period was tumultuous and it was not until 2016 that Barcelona won the crown.

Alfaro Moreno left his post a few months earlier to run for president, becoming the first foreign-born Canarian president. From my point of view, his management can be considered a failure. His experience as an active player was of very little use when it came to managing and integrating a competitive team. Anyone plays in Barcelona today, whether local or foreign; The debt is still huge and onerous contracts are being extended to useless mediocrity or retired footballers. Despite this, Alfaro plans to be re-elected (still a possibility), but there is an opposition in which another ex-Argentine player, now nationalized, is mentioned as a candidate for vice-president. If so, it seems that Barcelona is moving its headquarters, no longer to the Astillero district, but to Corrientes Street.

The choices of former football players for club leaders were not always unpleasant. The world always remembers that Santiago Bernabéu was a great scorer of the Madrid football club, later Real Madrid. In 1943, he was elected president, and the modest club under his leadership was declared the best in the 20th century. His involvement was successful: Alfredo Di Stéfano, Ferenc Puskas, Paco Gento, Raymond Kopa, Canario, Luis del Sol, Rogelio Domínguez, José Santamaría and others.

The Bernabéu built the stadium that bears his name in Madrid and not only cleaned up the entity’s deteriorating finances, but also made it the richest in the world. The Bernabéu was the first and most famous of those who were footballers, coaches and presidents.

Franz Beckenbauer is one of the most famous characters in the football world. He was the star of Bayern Munich, the world champion with Germany in 1974 and the champion again as a coach in Italy in 1990. His great role in the management of the Bavarian club made him today its honorary president. Equally successful was Joan Gamper, the founder of the Barcelona football club, and today Benfica is led by Rui Costa. The steps of Carlos Babington in Huracán de Buenos Aires and Daniel Pasarella in River Plate were different, and the latter, in addition to the demotion, is stained by conflicts and accusations that are still swirling around the courts today.

Dantón Suárez Pombar

Upon his return to Barcelona from Guayaquil, the first former player to assume the presidency was Dantón Suárez Pombar, in 1929, when the club produced its first hands in our sport. In 1943, Rigoberto Pan de dulce Aguirre, the famous goalkeeper between 1925 and 1941, presided over it; Then another historic figure took over, the team’s former striker, Wilfrido Rumbea León, who retired after scoring a goal against Panama to serve as president. In 1945, the central bullfighter was Federico Muñoz Medina, who retired that year and won the presidency in 1946. His task was historic.

He signed Sigifred Chuchuca and Juan Benítez, and at the end of that year he brought the young stars of Panama to Barcelona, ​​adding Guido Andrade from Milagros. He put everything under the technical guidance of his brother Jorge Muñoz Medina and the two began the process that turned humble Barcelona into an idolatrous social phenomenon. Wilfrido Rumbea returned to the head of Barcelona in 1952 and 1953, already at the time of the emergence of professionalism. Rigoberto Aguirre Coello was president again in 1966 and won the yellows’ third national title in history.

Since its founding in 1925, the presidents of Barcelona, ​​a popular symbol, have been gentlemen from Guayaquil born or living in Astillero. In some cases they came from other neighborhoods, but they carried in their spirit the chivalry, nobility and honor that were the virtues of the Astillero people. Everything was diluted by the postmodernism that was born with this century. Healthy habits are mostly forgotten.

The pride that was born from the love of the sport and the motto of gold and crimson that was born on the door until it became a popular passion began to disappear. They came to the institution as leaders, subjects eager for publicity, lucrative political manipulation or wealth, and today the result is shameful.

I hope they return to the days, not so far away, when the presidents were gentlemen of true passion, gold and crimson such as Aguirre Coello, Rumbea León, Galo Roggiero Rolando, Carlos Coello Martínez, José Tamariz Crespo or Nicolás Romero Sangster and that will members stop voting passionate adventurers who threaten to take the great Barcelona to the dustbin of history. (OR)