Wage reductions & Barçagate audit: the two main reasons for board room war

Barcelona find themselves in a moment of uncertainty after six board members resigned on Thursday. Barça president Josep Maria Bartomeu released a statement denying Rousaud's claim that someone had been taking money from the club and said the club would look into legal action if necessary... how did we reach this point? 

For weeks there has been a bad atmosphere among the board. The leak that Rousaud, who was among those to resign this week, would run as the current board's candidate gave next summer's elections more importance, although there were two issues that really brought on the institutional crisis the club is in. 

The first was news of Barçagate and the consequences that followed. Rousaud himself has confirmed as much in interviews this week. The allegations were that Barça had paid a third-party company to smear people linked with the club. 

"The issue with social media hurt us a lot and even more when the bills were split so that they did not pass through internal controls at the club," Rousaud said. "We could not look the other way as if nothing was happening, for that reason I pressed for an external audit." 

The now former vice president will not be able to see the audit having resigned. 

And the second reason is how the president has managed the coronavirus inflicted crisis with the first team players. 

"Bartomeu invited us (to step down) last week linked to the report from the audit which will soon be done and also because the salary reduction that had been proposed was insufficient to cover the economic problems that the club has due to the pandemic."