Joan Laporta
Joan Laporta i Estruch (Catalan pronunciation: [ʒuˈan ləˈpɔɾtə əsˈtɾuk]; born 29 June 1962) is a Spanish politician and current president of Barcelona.
Not to be confused with Juan Laporte.
Joan Laporta
Josep Maria Bartomeu
Carles Tusquets
(Interim)
Joan Gaspart
Enric Reyna (Interim)
Constanza Echevarría
3
Laporta is a lawyer (he graduated from the University of Barcelona) with his own firm, Laporta & Arbós, which has a number of notable Catalan firms as clients. He served as an MP in the Parliament of Catalonia between 2010 and 2012.
During his first tenure as president of Barcelona, they set a new record for trophies won in a 12-month period, winning six in 2009. After departing in 2010, he was re-elected as club president in 2021.
During Laporta's reign as club president, the sports sections of Barcelona have won over 92 official trophies as of 2023.
Political activities[edit]
Laporta has long been involved in politics. In 1996, he joined the Independence Party, formed by Pilar Rahola and Àngel Colom, former members of the Republican Left of Catalonia.[16]
Laporta has long held ambitions to enter Catalan politics after leaving office as president of FC Barcelona. He has in the past been outspoken about his political affiliations: he supports Catalan independence from Spain. FC Barcelona is seen by many as a symbol of Catalonia, a generally accepted fact which Laporta often emphasizes[17] but has been criticized by those who think that Barça should remain neutral from a political standpoint.[18]
Following the end of his second term as president, Laporta formed the independence-seeking political party Democràcia Catalana (Catalan Democracy). In the summer of 2010, Laporta's party merged with other extra-parliamentary pro-independence parties and grassroots movements into a political platform called Catalan Solidarity for Independence. Laporta was elected its president.
In the Catalan elections of 28 November 2010, the new party managed to win four seats in the 135-member Catalan Parliament, making it the sixth largest party out of seven.[19] Laporta was elected in the circumscription of Barcelona.
In 2011, Laporta stepped down as president of the Catalan Solidarity for Independence and left the party.
Criticism[edit]
Laporta's management of the sports sections of the club, especially the basketball section, has been controversial. On 2 June 2005, he faced the resignation of five members of the club's board of directors, including Sandro Rosell. They accused him of having changed for the worse as a person, having adopted authoritarian traits and harbouring ambitions of power.
In October 2005, he faced a scandal when his brother-in-law and member of the board of directors in charge of security, Alejandro Echevarría, was revealed to be a member of the Francisco Franco Foundation. After several denials by Echevarría and Laporta, contested by documents shown by a former member of the board of directors, Laporta was finally forced to accept Echevarría's resignation. Echevarría continued, however, to be close to the club and he organized the security during the celebrations of the 2005–06 La Liga championship.
Laporta's own political history added to the complications surrounding the Echevarría scandal, as his politics are diametrically opposed to those implied by Echevarría's membership of the Francisco Franco Foundation. Laporta is a self-described Catalan nationalist and has been identified on several occasions as supporting the independence of Catalonia from Spain. In the early 1990s, he and fellow Catalan politicians Pilar Rahola and Ángel Colom founded the now-defunct Partit per la independencia, which supported Catalan separatism.[20] He was also an active participant at the controversial Frankfurt Book Fair of 2007, at which Catalan language and culture were the special featured invitees, but not including other Catalonia-based authors who wrote in other languages, such as Spanish. At the fair, Laporta stated that he "hopes that FC Barcelona continues to be a tool to promote the Catalan language and culture" and to the contrary, he would feel obligated "to create the Catalan Republic of Barcelona".[21]
Another criticism Joan Laporta faced was coming back to his presidential chair in 2021 for Barcelona, which already had big financial issues and its best football player Lionel Messi on the verge of leaving, with promises to turn the situation around and persuade Messi to stay. He failed the promise, Messi left for another club making some fans angry and upset. Messi's exit from Barcelona led to Jaume Llopis, a former member of the Espai Barça Commission, to resign from his post stating that the club and the president did not do their all to keep the Argentine at the club.[1]
Personal life[edit]
Laporta was married to Constanza Echevarría and has three sons, Pol, Guillem and Jan.[22] Laporta's son Pol is a footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder.[23]