FCBARCELONA.CAT

17.06.2007 23:44

Laporta: “We have to renew the hope”

Sergi Nogueras

Speaking just after the final whistle of the match against Nàstic, FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta told reporters it was time to, “renew the hope, the professionalism and the commitment” of the football senior squad.

It’s time to admit our mistakes and look to the future. Speaking after Sunday’s championship deciders, Joan Laporta underlined: “We have to renew the hope, the professionalism and the commitment. The reading [of the situation] is done and so is the analysis. When I refer to renewing the hope, the professionalism and the commitment I’m referring to the squad. The Club can cope with the necessary overhaul and I don’t believe that we can go downhill just because of one result. The Club is a worldwide reference point”.

Changes ahead

He also stated that the overhaul would be done in an atmosphere of total optimism for the future: “What has happened and what I have in my thoughts is a determination to keep going forward with high hopes. We have the good fortune that Barça is a reference point around the world and that the best players want to come here. We have to be very accurate about choosing new incorporations and always very careful. We’ll be announcing the changes and I’m very excited about starting again. There’ll be reasons for Barça members to maintain their hopes in a project that has given us many moments of glory and has to keep on giving them. The project has life left in it but the motor needs adjusting”.

Disappointment

Letting the league title slip through our fingers has been a huge disappointment to all Barça fans, starting with Joan Laporta himself: “We all have a feeling of disappointment. There are degrees of responsibility here and we all know where the main responsibility lies”.

Congratulations to the champions

Apart from admitting mistakes, the Barça president is determined to find the positives from the campaign: “We’ve learned a lot from this season and that makes us stronger. First of all I’d like to congratulate the champions who have won fair and square. We have to know how to accept defeat”. Laporta also insisted that he feels up to the task of ringing the changes: “I’m not despondent. I’m really excited about renewing the professionalism. We have to renew the commitment. We have to renew the hope. We have the authority to do it”.

Analysis and mistakes

With the season now over, the time has arrived to take decisions, or rather put the decisions that have already been taken into practice: “This has been decided for some time because we could see it coming, independently of what happened at the end. The same decisions have to be taken as were taken a month ago. At a given moment we noticed a certain lack of commitment. Maybe because of a saturation of really good years at Barça, maybe for human reasons or because of the dynamic we were in. This year we haven’t won anything and obviously we have to take action. I recognise our own mistakes”.

The first objective

At the beginning of the season, Barça had the chance to win seven trophies and in the end that has been limited to two, neither of them in the main competitions. For Joan Laporta, the main objective was La Liga: “It’s a big disappointment because we were involved in seven competitions and the aim was to win them all. Looking at the squad, the hope was that we could win 1 or 2 of the main ones but hasn’t happened. That was the priority within our reach given the playing quality and talent of the squad. You could see it coming. We played with fire and got burnt”.

Self-criticism

However, the Barça president made it clear that mistakes had been made all round: “In a team game you can’t accuse individuals. We’ve all failed: the directors, the technical staff, coaches and players. But there are different degrees of responsibility. However, the hope and commitment to continue must be present and that’s what we’re doing”. He also singled out one mistake for special attention: “Not having taken action earlier and not having realised what was happening in certain situations in which we should have acted sooner”.