On December 13th, 1899, the newly formed FC Barcelona had its second foundational meeting, where they decided who would be our first ever President, who would be part of our first ever board and what would be the club’s colors.
This is what they saw fit to make clear on the 3^rd paragraph of the document that summed up the meeting: “It was decided that that colors that this society will use will be the dark blue and scarlet with perpendicular stripes and on the chest Barcelona’s crest”.

5 days after our first ever match, it was decided the colors this club would use and the way the colors would be presented.

And we have superb players wearing and thriving with this shirt with perpendicular stripes. Paulino Alcatara tore up nets wearing this shirt. So did Samitier. Then Cesar. Kubala did so well we had to build the Camp Nou just to accommodate the fans that wanted to watch the Five Cups Team.
Cruijff won our first Liga in 13 years with it. Maradona tormented Real Madrid in it. So did Romário, Laudrup and Stoichkov. Guardiola became player and then captain while wearing it.

Then we saw the likes of Xavi, Puyol and Iniesta come up using it. Ronaldinho won it all while using it, along with Eto’o.

And Messi has scored over 400 goals in it, having won, more than once, each title there is to be won in European football.

We’ve won 4 European Cup titles, 23 La Liga titles… hell, 84 titles in total while wearing blaugrana perpendicular stripes.

What was decided on December 13^th, 1899, was always respected. No one even though about changing our actual, literal identity: the combination of colors and perpendicular stripes that have always made it easy to show which club we chose to love and support.

Until December 1^st, 2014. On that date, people who work from a company from Oregon showed a design that completely disrespect not only what was determined on our first ever board meeting, but over 115 years of a winning visual identity, to a FCB President no one ever voted for.
Nike sat down with Bartomeu that day, in a meeting so secretive that not even the complete FCB board was presented, and showed him that they had in mind for the 15/16 season. They presented several different models, including one inspired on our beautiful Centenary shirt.
Let’s make it clear: Nike, like they do every year, went to Barcelona with several design options that would then be chosen by FCB’s board and the marketing department.

And Bartomeu, along with his marketing department chose to disrespect 115 years of a visual identity all culers feel proud of, to sell a blaugrana shirt with parallel stripes. I’ve never been good with Geometry, but “perpendicular” has absolutely nothing to do with “parallel”; the same way “vertical” has nothing to do with “horizontal”.

So why did Bartomeu and his band of followers made such horrible call? Money.

“FCB wishes to be the club that sells the most shirts”, that’s how the Catalan media that backs each step Bartomeu makes, on January, 2015, gladly announced when the designs were leaked.
“Even though the polemics surrounding the horizontal stripes, people from the board believe it will be a huge selling hit, between other reasons because the new design will be a spectacular calling to the fans from abroad, people who don’t have sentimental or historical reasons to be against the change from vertical to horizontal stripes”.

So let’s make it clear: this board, that runs a club that has 97% of its socis in Spain, because they decided to make it virtually impossible for foreigners to become FCB socis, decided to approve an horrendous and disrespectful design because they are certain the people they do not see as good enough to be part of the club would turn us into the best shirt selling club in the world.

They think people like me, and most fans that are reading this, are not as attached to our historical values and traditions just because we aren’t actually from Catalunya or Spain. But, hey, we are good enough to pay 90 euros for an ugly ass horizontally striped shirt!

History? Tradition? Identity? Our sense of belonging? Why care about that when we could be selling more shirts than Manchester United and Real Madrid?

This shirt is this board’s crowning achievement. Sums up everything they’ve been doing since 2010. These people, first under Rosell and now under Bartomeu, ran Masia into the ground and left it in such a state we’ll soon see Barça B on the 3^rd Division; were so arrogant we are banned from signing players until January, 2016; then with the same arrogance boasted about their “financial engineering” while signing Neymar and have managed to have the club on Trial for tax fraud; sold our shirt (for only 36mi euros/season) to Qatar Sporting Ministry, the same people who are responsible for hundreds of deaths of poor workers for the 2022 World Cup; and keep getting only 35mi/year from Nike, while clubs like United and Bayern are earning 95-105mi euros/season; and, even worse, managed to have people like Pep, Abidal, Valdes and Puyol leave the club in short succession and most of them without the honors they were supposed to receive.

This was their last big FUCK YOU to every single culer out there.

They asked for fair play from the other candidates when they announced there would be elections (something that should have happened after Rosell stepped down last year), but have been campaigning every single day, with every single chance they have.
But they will lose.

Sadly, this shirt is already mass produced and we’ll be our shirt for our next season.
Nike is selling it as something “from the stands to the pitch”, trying to use the excuse that this design is based on the flags people use at the Camp Nou.
No one asked for it.
No one ever held a blaugrana flag and went: “Oh, we should have that on our shirt!”, because our identity, just as our playing style, is something we should not negotiate.
This board has disrespected this club’s history, this socis and common sense time and time again. This shirt is just the cherry on the top of all their bullshit.
But they will lose the elections in July. And we’ll start rebuilding, while having to endure a horrendous shirt, but we’ll pull through without them.
And, in 2016, while we say goodbye to this disgusting shirt, Rosell and Bartomeu might as well be using horizontal stripes of their own, if they are found indeed guilty of the tax frauds they committed while signing Neymar.
Black and white stripes.