Benedito activates vote of no confidence against Barça board

Agusti Benedito arrived at FC Barcelona's offices on Friday to request the ballot papers to launch a vote of no confidence against the current board, headed by president Josep Maria Bartomeu. 

The club later announced that they had made the papers available and Benedito now has 14 working days to get signatures from between 16,000 and 18,000 socios. The exact number has not been confirmed, but he needs 15 percent of socios on board. 

"The challenge to get signatures is huge, but I think that in this moment we can manage it. I am sure that at the moment there 20,000, 30,000, 40,000 or 50,000 Barça socios that agree with me that the only way out of this mess is for the board to resign," Benedito explained. 

Benedito, who has twice stood to become president, losing in 2010 and 2015, made the comments after presenting the document to begin the vote of no confidence process. 

If he manages to achieve the requred amount of signatures, Barça must organise a referendum which could end in the automatic removal of the whole board and, as a consequence, lead to new elections. In the referedum, 66.6 percent of voting socios would have to vote against the board.