Ricardo Barkala works as a candidate for the Athletic elections. The president of the Port Authority of Bilbao is campaigning. Barkala has participated this Wednesday morning in a Forum Europa Tribuna Euskadi meeting to talk about the entity he presides over… and launch a nod to his career towards the presidency of Athletic, for which there are still no more candidates announced but the bet of Iaki Arechabaleta, Deputy CEO of Vocento, is taken for granted, and it remains to be seen if the electoral calendar also includes Jon Uiarte, businessman and entrepreneur at All Iron Group and Libere, which also has a consolidated working group.
The president of the Port admitted that in this time of pre-candidacy he has maintained contacts with several possible coaches. “It’s a lie if I said that I haven’t talked to several coaches,” he said before pointing out that “it’s a shame that the elections are at the end of June or the beginning of July. The contracts end on June 30 and Barkala is now just another partner…and so how am I going to convince an elite trainer to come with me under these conditions?. It will be a path that we will be clearing little by little,” he stressed.
Ricardo Barkala fwas presented at the Forum by Alejandro Aznar, President of the Association of Basque Shipowners, the Spanish Maritime Cluster and Ibaizabal. Aznar, who confessed to being a friend of the first partner who this spring has made it clear that he will be a candidate for the Athletic elections, highlighted the “conciliatory attitude” of the president of the Port Authority. The pre-candidate Barkala was careful to give many details regarding his plans for the presidency in case he is chosen by the partners. Of course, his collaborators are taking different steps to strengthen a project that, in one of its main vertices, includes the hiring of a coach. The pre-candidacy that he heads has contacted technicians with a very marked profile to see if they would be willing to take charge of the team even if that means waiting until the elections are held in June.
I know little about football, so I’m not the typical one who says you have to remove or add this one. I have to get the sports director and the director of Lezama right so that they know which coach to choose.
“I have a group of 40 or 50 people who help me a lot. We want to do beautiful important things also in the Foundation. We will do a balance analysis so that if we are elected to the Board of Directors, all partners are represented,” he explained. The president of the Port Authority of Bilbao, who said that his initial idea is not to resign from the port if elected, he added that “I know little about football, so I’m not the typical one who says we have to remove or add this one. I have to get the sports director and the director of Lezama right so that they know which coach to choose. We are having many contacts and we are going to present an attractive project. We’re talking to a lot of people,” he finished.
Barkala, who has had extensive political experience, shared a table at breakfast before his speech with Arantza Tapia, Minister of Economic Development, Sustainability and the Environment of the Basque Government, Juan Mari Aburto, Mayor of Bilbao, and also Itsaso Atutxa, president of the Bizkaiko Buru Batzar. “As mayor of Bilbao, what I conveyed is that I will have an exceptional relationship with the president of Athletic, whoever he may be, because I think it is very important that two institutions such as the City Council and Athletic have a fluid relationship. Ricardo is a friend, he is part of my crew, and I value him in that sense as a friend”, highlighted the Bilbao mayor on April 1 at COPE Bilbao.
The scene of the Europa Forum Tribuna Euskadi was in 2011 the official door for campaign support in the candidacy that led Josu Urrutia to the presidency of the club. The then still candidate offered a conference in the halls of the Hotel Ercilla and at the end of it received the firm endorsement of Mario Fernndez, who was president of the BBK, in the former soccer player’s project as the future leader of the club.
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