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Next spring, a new Barcelona president will be chosen. From this week on, totalBarca will offer you a weekly round-up of the news that will be based on the posts that are published on a daily basis on my FC Barcelona 2010 blog that covers the elections.

We will try to guide you through the process and give you some insights. As a prologue you could read – besides the election news that has already been published on this site the article Who will be the next president of FC Barcelona?, a post that was published on the fcbtransfers blog and that, although a little outdated, can still serve as an introduction.

The objective is to make one new and consistent story that summarizes the past week and that will have multiple links to my blog where interested people can read the full story. I thank the people in charge of this site for giving me this opportunity .

- Pep.

There are basically two crucial questions remaining before this election process can definitely lift off:

(1) what will former economic sports-vice president Ferran Soriano do?
(2) who will be the board candidate?

Ferran Soriano, who last week came out on top of a poll organized by probably the most popular Catalan Barcelona blog, still didn’t pronounce on what his role will be in the elecions. It is nevertheless generally believed that he will not run himself but support another candidate, mainly because he’s too busy with his job as chairman of an airline.

The board on the other hand has planned to start talking about their candidate after the World Cup for Clubs next month. Although Barcelona treasurer Xavier Sala i Martín still hasn’t given up the possibility of leading a candidacy, first vice-president Alfons Godall would be in pole position. Former president Joan Gaspart meanwhile advised president Laporta to not publicly appoint a successor.

Former Barcelona sports vice-president Sandro Rosell, who is seen as the frontrunner in the race to the presidency, has been appointed as adviser of former South Africa president Nelson Mandela, but had to deal with some punches from Sala i Martín in an interview the professor of economics gave last week:

“It is interesting to see that Rosell was on the wrong side when all the major decisions were made: he couldn’t stand Txiki, he wanted Scolari, he did not want to sign Eto’o to avoid irritating Florentino Pérez and opted for Adriano, as if the president of Barça has to give in to his counterpart in Madrid.”

We recovered a 2006 interview where Rosell was on the other side of the punches: “Laporta did mislead people, because in the beginning he promised that his board would be democratic, while that wasn’t the case. His way of acting changed little by little until I wasn’t able to recognize him anymore.”

Regarding the candidates of the second row, there has been a rumour that a well-respected journalist could be preparing to run for president. As our blog kind of exclusively revealed earlier this month, it also seems close to be confirmed that university professor Jaume Guixà will take part in the elections as he is expected to present himself to the voters next week.

Agusti Benedito, who already confirmed his candidacy in October, meanwhile said in an extensive interview that he hopes to be able to become the third option: “Those who think that the elections are a matter of two are mistaken. Some will vote for Rosell, others for Laporta, but the majority will not vote for one of them.”

And while Barcelona captain Carles Puyol has excluded that he will ever run for president, club members think that this isn’t the right time for Barcelona coach Josep Guardiola to take part.

With 30 per cent of the socios being women, there could also be a battle for the female vote coming up. While Sandro Rosell would want to include three women in his candidacy, Alfons Godall reportedly plans to offer Catalan lawyer and current director Magda Oranich to become the first female vice-president in the history of the club.

Most read of the week:
Respected journalist to run for president?

Must read of the week:
Talks on board candidate to start in December

Interesting sidenote read of the week:
Rosell appointed as adviser of Nelson Mandela

EDITORS NOTE: The author behind FC Barcelona 2010 blog is the founder of FCB Transfers.