Barca president set to resign

The under-fire president of Spanish football club Barcelona, Juan Laporta, will resign from his post on Thursday, the Catalan daily Sport reported on their website Tuesday.

Laporta has been forced into this position by his management committee who are due to hold an emergency meeting on Thursday following two years of turbulence in the club, Sport claimed.

Laporta survived a confidence vote on Sunday even though less than half of all supporters who participated backed him.

The 45-year-old got the backing of just 37.75 percent of the 39,389 supporters who took part in the vote while 60.60 percent voted against him staying on until his current mandate at the Spanish club ends in June 2010.

To be successful the motion against Laporta needed to have the support of over two-thirds of voters.

Barcelona refused to comment of the report but confirmed that an emergency meeting of management would be held on Thursday.

“We'll see what happens Thursday,” a club spokesman told AFP.

Under Laporta the club won back-to-back league titles in 2005 and 2006, along with the Champions League in 2006 but he has grown increasingly unpopular with supporters due to the recent drought in silverware.

Barcelona ended the season in third place, meaning they missed out on automatic qualification for the Champions League.