Barcelona de Guayaquil unveils sweeping restructuring plan with new general manager, eyes conversion into publicly traded club

Barcelona de Guayaquil wants to turn the page on its leadership crisis with a plan that goes far beyond the next signing or the next opponent. Miguel Montalvo, who took charge of the club after Antonio Alvarez stepped down, announced at a press conference a sweeping restructuring that includes bringing in a new general manager and, as the ultimate goal, converting the club into a Sociedad Anonima Deportiva, Ecuador's version of a publicly traded sports company.

Why now? Because, according to Montalvo himself, the club can't afford to sit around waiting for things to sort themselves out. "The institution has to move forward, and now more than ever we need to make decisions to try to protect what we, as the leadership, believe is the right path. We need to make institutional decisions in a comprehensive way," the club official explained.

The first concrete step already has a date attached to it: next week the club's new general manager will arrive in the country, an Ecuadorian executive whose selection process began three and a half months ago with the help of a human resources consulting firm. Montalvo was clear about the focus of this new chapter: "I have a business mindset, and after discussing it with Galo (Roggiero, the vice president) and other board members, we believe the club needs to be restructured organizationally. We're starting a process with a general manager who arrives in the country next week, and that process is going to have two sides: order, which is what we've been working on along with credibility, and the other is building institutional structure."

The Road to Becoming a SAD

The underlying idea, the one generating the most excitement behind the scenes, is turning Barcelona into a Sociedad Anonima Deportiva (SAD). This isn't a last-minute whim: Montalvo says most of the club's members already share that vision. "The solution is that someday, hopefully in the short term, this becomes a SAD. All of the members, or the great majority of them, believe in that. We're going to build that path. As long as we're here, that's where we're headed, or at least we'll leave behind the legacy of having paved the way to get there," he said.

The timeline they've set for themselves is neither open ended nor immediate: they're talking about 60 days to have something concrete on the table. "Reciprocity is built when everyone in the organization shares the same goal, without letting passions or emotions get in the way, with realistic scenarios and always thinking as a team. We're diving into a deep analysis, and even though we've already been working on this, we believe that in 60 days we can put something together," the president added.

Vice president Galo Roggiero filled in the picture regarding the profile of the executive joining the project:

The selection process for this executive, he's Ecuadorian. We started it three and a half months ago and we did it with the help of a human resources consulting firm, to evaluate a range of national and international candidates. He has extensive corporate experience, experience working at institutions going through financial crises, and he understands well how to focus on the structural and financial sideGalo Roggiero

With this announcement, the yellow and black leadership makes clear that the goal isn't limited to handling day to day soccer matters. The idea is to lay administrative and financial groundwork that, in the view of Montalvo and his team, will allow the club to leave improvisation behind and move toward a more professionalized management model, regardless of who holds the presidency in the future.