Today, June 13, 2010, Alexandre “Sandro” Rosell i Feliu was elected as FC Barcelona’s 39th president by an overwhelming margin. 35,021 socis cast their vote for him (22,067 cast votes for someone else or no one) and a record 57,088 (or 48.11% of the total membership) voted overall.

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Previously I covered the three of the candidates for Barça president (here and here) and now it is down to the final candidate. As Kevin pointed out in the comments, we socis have received our official invitations to vote on Sunday along with our table assignments. It is with great sadness that I have to announce that I will be unable to attend and vote in what otherwise would have been my first Barça election. There is much wailing and gnashing of teeth going on in my household today.

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Yesterday we reviewed the candidacy of Agustí­ Benedito; today we’ll be tackling Jaume Ferrer and Marc Ingla, leaving Sandro Rosell to his own post tomorrow. So, to just go ahead and jump right in:

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I am a firm believer that nothing takes place in this world within a vacuum and football is obviously no exception. This fact means that our beloved sport, whose fascination starts on the pitch, is deeply involved in the most unfortunate of things: politics. Because of the cultural and social meaning of the game, it has attracted not just the lovers of the sport, but also the sinister evil of politicians. And yet it’s still fascinating, still alluring, and still important. So we have to cover the politics here on this blog once every couple of years–what a terrible life I lead, no?

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This is just a small post about the elections that are coming up. I don’t want to get into them too in-depth right now (both because of time constraints and the need for more research on my end), but I think there are at least a few things that are worth explaining for those who haven’t been paying strict attention to the developments at the board these last few years. And who could blame you for tuning that stuff out while the team is purring like a kitten having its belly scratched?

To start things off there’s the “Who is who?” question. The candidates are as follows (in alphabetical order):

1. Agustí Benedito - a Catalan businessman (in the car industry) and one of the founding members of Elefant Blau in1997 (along with Laporta).
2. Jaume Ferrer – Barça’s Vice President of Marketing and Media until his resignation to pursue his candidature.
3. Jaume Guixà – A college professor who appears to be the only candidate with women on his board.
4. Marc Ingla – Barça Vice President from 2005 to 2008, when he resigned due to differences with Laporta.
5. Alexis Plaza – A 27-year old hotel executive. His step dad is John Toshack, apparently.
6. Sandro Rosell – Laporta’s first Vice President; resigned in 2005. An ex-Nike representative.
7. Santiago Salvat – A Catalan businessman. His wife is pretty. That’s all I know about him.

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