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Joan Laporta i Estruch (2003-)

Joan Laporta i Estruch, who has been a club member since August 17, 1974, became president on June 15, 2003 and was re-elected to the position in the summer of 2006.

Born in Barcelona on June 29, 1962, Joan Laporta has a law degree from the University of Barcelona (UB) and is a member of the Illustrious College of Lawyers of Barcelona and is on the Management Board of the Ernest LLuch Foundation. He is also a Master of Company Law and Taxation Expertise from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores Abad Oliba in Barcelona and has a Diploma in Merchant company law from the Illustrious College of Lawyers of Barcelona

Laporta is a founding member and owner of the LAPORTA & ARBÓS lawyers office, Abogados Asociados, and is a collaborating professor at the Property and Registry Law Seminary for the Faculty of Technical Architects at the University of Barcelona (UB). He has also been personal advisor to the Japanese consul in Barcelona

Joan Laporta became president of FC Barcelona after winning the elections held on June 15, 2003 in a clear and solvent fashion. It was a convincing victory: Joan Laporta, 27,138 votes (52.57%); Lluís Bassat, 16,412; Jordi Majó, 2,490; Josep Martínez-Rovira, 2,388; Josep Maria Minguella, 1,867; and Jaume Llauradó, 987. Those elections will also be remembered for an extraordinary turnout among the electorate, with 53.79% casting their votes.

In summer 2006, Joan Laporta won a second presidential term, as he was the only member to present the 1,804 signatures required to stand for the position (he collected 8,994). After 33 days in which the club was controlled by a Managing Commission headed by Xavier Sala i Martín, president until then of the Financial Commission, Joan Laporta was once again proclaimed president of FC Barcelona on the same day that the 41st edition of the Joan Gamper Trophy was played on August 22, 2006.

With Joan Laporta at the helm, the club has striven to promote the values that have traditionally been associated with Barça: Catalan nationalism, civilian duty and universality. The president of FC Barcelona has always wanted the club to be a model in terms of the fight against violence in football stadiums, peace, solidarity, democracy and individual and collective freedom. Guided by the policy of ‘Zero tolerance’, the Barça board has managed to put an end to violent behaviour in the Camp Nou as part of an initiative that was widely applauded by the football world .

Another of Joan Laporta’s major projects was to set up the Great Challenge campaign aimed at increasing the club’s membership. In 2003, Barça had 106,372 members, a figure that would rise as each year went by to eventually reach 156,000 for the first time in 2007.

In charge of the biggest multi-sports club in the world, Joan Laporta is conducting a project to show the world how committed Barça is to social, humanitarian and solidarity issues. Once the club had been stabilised in both a financial and sporting sense, new and innovative formulas were devised to make FC Barcelona ‘more than a club’ in the world, an objective that has been best portrayed by different collaboration agreements with Unicef, Unesco and Acnur.

Joan Laporta, as the president of one of the most important football clubs in the continent has also led several projects to promote the interests of clubs on a European level. He is a member of the work group for financial matters on FIFA’s “for the good of the game” Task Force, a member of UEFA’s European Professional Football Strategy Board de la UEFA, a member of FIFA’s sub-work group “Club Ownership and club licensing”, the president of FIFA’s “for the good of the game” work group for competitions Task Force and the vice president of the ECA (European Clubs Association). The Barça president has achieved, among other goals, the objective of compensation to clubs by international organisations when players are taken away on international duty.

In a sporting sense, Joan Laporta’s time in charge has coincided with a number of major achievements. After a first season that was mainly about creating a totally new project under coach Frank Rijkaard, the following two seasons confirmed that the club was going about thing in the right way, with the conquest of two consecutive league titles, plus a second European Cup title won in Paris in May 2006. After not winning anything in seasons 2006/07 and 2007/08, FC Barcelona would win the Champions League once more on 27th May 2009 in Rome, becoming Kings of Europe  for the third time in their history and thus bringing to a close the best campaign in their history as they won tehble.