The weird world of Barcelona election candidates, featuring a trumpeter and a former adult films producer

Barcelona’s presidential elections have never been short on colour, but the 2025 race to succeed Joan Laporta—who resigned last week to seek re-election—may be the most eccentric yet. While Laporta, Victor Font, Marc Ciria and Xavi Vilajoana court voters with manifestos and media rounds, history shows that anyone with 2,337 member signatures and a year’s club membership can reach the ballot. Over the decades that low bar has lured a trumpeter who claimed his horn inspired Ronald Koeman’s 1992 Wembley winner, a producer of adult cinema who offered free pizza and tattoos for endorsements, and a perennial one-signature candidate who simply wanted to stop rivals stealing his autograph.

Ferran Estrada, the late trumpeter who became a folk hero in the Gol Sud stand, campaigned 12 times across 43 years, gathering a personal-best 87 signatures in 2021. Jordi Farre, who forced the 2020 no-confidence vote that toppled Josep Maria Bartomeu, once tried to swap autographs for slices of pizza and Barça ink. Businessman Clusells saw his 2003 bid collapse after a live-TV pledge to open the first-team dressing room to women, while furrier Lluis Linan presented himself six elections in a row, usually armed with only his own signature. The latest long-shot is Maddock Saint Noble, a dual British-Spanish citizen who calls himself a “low-cost, last-minute” option and is awaiting trial after removing squatters from his hotel. With signatures due by 9 p.m. on 2 March and the decisive vote set for 15 March, the stage is set for another chapter in the most colourful electoral theatre in world football.