Barcelona

Joan Laporta, who was president from 2003 to 2010, was elected FC Barcelona's President with an absolute majority of 54.28% of the votes. Laporta will serve a six-year term upon taking the reins again.

"We experienced the same thing in 2003. We were losing, had a huge debt and were having to pay too many expenses and income was lower than revenue. The situation today is very similar and my formula to get out of it is very simple. We need to control expenses, restructure the debt and work to generate new sources of income," Laporta told the BBC prior to the election.

Four people were arrested on Monday morning for 'Barçagate' so far, including the club's former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, former board member Jaume Masferrer, Barça's current CEO Òscar Grau and the head of legal services, Román Gómez-Ponti.

In February 2020, Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser revealed a scheme in which then-president Bartomeu hired the company I3Ventures, which specialises in mass dissemination of offences and misinformation on social media.

Next Sunday, on March 7, FC Barcelona will hold an election to designate the new president for the coming six years, with three candidates: former president Joan Laporta, Víctor Font and Toni Freixa.

This Sunday's edition of the newspaper El Mundo exclusively unveils Leo Messi's contract with FC Barcelona. The contract dates to 2017, covering four seasons for a total of 555 million euros and it is "the sum of a fixed salary, image rights, a series of multi-million euro bonuses unheard of to date, allowances and a string of variables depending on various objectives".

According to the newspaper, Messi has already secured 92% of the contract, despite the team's setbacks in the Champions League's recent seasons, the competition that has the highest bonuses.

Barcelona denied "any responsibility for the publication of this document".

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has resigned. The bureaucracy and the open war with Messi, the bad sports results and the economic situation of the club left Bartomeu on the wire. Still, it has finally been the motion of censure, with more than 16,000 signatures, that has precipitated the resignation of the president.

Bartolomeu resignation comes three days after Barca's 3-1 home defeat to Real Madrid, and just a day after he said: "that it had not occurred to him to resign."

Following an Interpol arrest warrant requested by the USA, John McAfee could now face extradition to the US and a tax evasion trial.

The sports journalist and insider Fabrizio Romano has announced that Lionel Messi will stay with the FC Barcelona for the 2021 season as he did not want to get "into a legal dispute".

Following a quote of Messi that he published he soccer player stated that "the management of the club led by Bartomeu is a disaster".

After forcing Airbnb to remove advertisements for unlicensed tourist apartments, and trying to regulate the operations of Uber or Cabify, the spotlight is now on the big online retail operators. The City Council is considering the implementation of a tax for large companies like Amazon, which make profits in the city but do not pay taxes like local businesses. Legally it will not be easy, they admit in Ada Colau's government. The idea is to tax the use of public space which is a local competence.

The mayor explains that, from the constitutional point of view, the contribution "would be based on the use of the local public space used by the platforms to obtain an economic benefit".

Lewis Hamilton beat Mercedes team-mate Valtteri Bottas to pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona. Hamilton has now 92 poles in his career.

Max Verstappen, Sergio Perez, and Lance Stroll complete the five best qualifications for the race Sunday.