Barça member may withdraw suit after Rosell resignation
Jordi Cases mulls retracting legal action “out of respect for the club”
Jordi Cases, the Barcelona season ticket holder who took legal action against club president Sandro Rosell over the deal to sign Brazilian star Neymar, is considering withdrawing his lawsuit “out of respect for the club” after Rosell announced his resignation on Thursday.
The lawyer bringing the case, which was accepted by the National High Court on Wednesday, had previously warned that he and his client were thinking of expanding the suit to include Rosell’s successor, Josep Maria Bartomeu. The name of the club’s former vice president appears on the majority of the Neymar contracts, raising question marks over his announced appointment.
The suit centers on the management of now ex-president Rosell and so, after speaking to friends and Barcelona supporters, Cases is reportedly mulling whether to withdraw from the judicial proceedings, conscious of the fact that they are now already underway and that doing so would have no effect on the investigation.
Why is nobody looking at Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale contract?”
Cases, a pharmacist from the Catalan town of Olesa, decided to launch the lawsuit after his requests for the club to clarify the Neymar deal fell on deaf ears. Not only did board spokesman Toni Freixa ignore the certified fax he sent in November asking why the club had paid 40 million euros to a company created by Neymar’s parents, but also himself threatened Cases with legal action a month later when the lawsuit was already on National High Court Judge Pablo Ruz’s desk.
Cases, who was thinking of stepping back as early as last week “so as not to damage Barcelona,” is also angry at how they are making use of the issue “from Madrid.” “I don’t like how it is being used to go against Catalonia and Barça,” he said. “As a Catalan and as a supporter of independence [for the region] I am angry. I hope in Madrid they are asking why they say in the club that they paid 95 million euros for [Gareth Bale] and according to Tottenham it was 105. Why is nobody looking at that contract?”