Barcelona calls for early club elections at end of season

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) – Barcelona president Josep Bartomeu has called for early club elections to be held at the end of the season, saying Wednesday the increasingly troubled Spanish soccer team needs to “relieve tension.”

The early elections will cut short by a year the current board’s mandate, which was to expire at the end of the 2015-16 season.

The decision came two days after Bartomeu fired sports director Andoni Zubizarreta and a week after the club lost its appeal against the FIFA-imposed one-year transfer ban for violating rules regarding the registration of youth players.

“The principal motive to call elections is to relieve tension that the club is living, a tension that is out of proportion,” Bartomeu said. “This noise, this tension that is out of proportion inevitably affects the team, of course. That is why we are calling elections, to reduce this tension.”

Bartomeu said he would run for re-election, but did not announce the exact date for the elections. Club statues say the current board should resign before the elections to open a period of campaigning.

Bartomeu has also not yet hired a new sports director to replace Zubizarreta.

Bartomeu replaced former president Sandro Rosell after he stepped down last January while facing a lawsuit involving the contract of Neymar.