22,689 members choose the president of Athletic with Uriarte as the winner in the exit polls

22,689 Athletic members have gone to the polls in an intense election day to elect the 33 president of the rojiblanco club.

A high turnout (56.35%) that exceeds that of 2018 by almost ten points but remains below the 65.49% that turned out to vote in 2011. The vote has been involved in controversy with several accusations between the three candidates;

Jon Uriarte, Ricardo Barkala and Iñaki Arechabaleta.

The exit polls carried out by several Bilbao media place Uriarte as the favorite with support of more than 50% of the votes compared to the 36% that Arechabaleta can achieve, while Barkala would remain with support close to 15%.

The 24 polling stations located in San Mamés began counting at 9:00 p.m. and at 10:25 p.m. the gates of the stadium will open while awaiting the proclamation ceremony of the next Atletico president.

The initial forecasts of the Bilbao team predict that the count may be completed as of 11:00 p.m.

The elections in

have caused a direct confrontation on voting day between Iñaki Arechabaleta, Ricardo Barkala and Jon Uriarte;

the three candidates who still hope to be presidents of the rojiblanco team starting at 9 at night.

Arechabaleta has criticized that Barkala has placed a tent with drinks on the outskirts of San Mamés with the claim to raise funds for the children of the stadium, Barkala has demanded that the members go to vote in a message made public after 3:00 p.m. in the that questions the exit polls that show a presumed advantage of Uriarte with 52% of the votes.

Uriarte already saw himself as the candidate with the most options when this morning he went to vote with a suitcase with the spare clothes with which he will appear if he is elected president.

The fair play campaign agreed between Arechabaleta and Barkala having a coffee in May has been blown up during a tense day of voting that began at 9 in the morning and will end at 9:00 p.m.

According to the data offered by Athletic, at 3:00 p.m., 11,097 members have already voted, representing

electoral roll.

The electoral temperature in the vicinity of the rojiblanco stadium, among the candidates, in the media and on social networks has skyrocketed during an intense morning in which each of the candidates has taken advantage of after voting to directly confront their rivals.

Iñaki Arechabaleta, when asked by journalists, has denounced the presence of

installed by the Barkala candidacy next to San Mamés and the president of the Port of Bilbao has counterattacked defending the legality of an installation that "any resident of Bilbao can place" .

The exhibition of the tent by the former deputy mayor of Bilbao and former deputy minister of the Basque Government has surprised the thousands of members who, since early in the morning, have been exceeding the participation that was registered in the December 2018 elections when Aitor Elizegi competed. and Alberto Uribe-Etxebarria.

Until 3:00 p.m., the participation in these elections is 27.6% compared to 21.2% four years ago.

The presence of three candidates, in a campaign that has been heating up over the last week, has pushed more members to go to the polls.

Despite this, Barkala has claimed in a video broadcast on his Twitter account that the members take advantage of until the last moment to vote because, according to his data, the survey carried out by Telebilbao would not be in line with reality.

The president of the Port of Bilbao feels he has enough support to compete both with Jon Uriarte -with whom he shares the election of Ernesto Valverde as coach- and with Iñaki Arechabaleta, the candidate who has relied on the figure of Marcelo Bielsa.

Arechabaleta has also made Barkala's candidacy ugly with the announcement on the eve of election day of the signing of Jon Moncayola if he manages to attend with the payment to Osasuna of the 22 million euros of his termination clause.

Arechabaleta has questioned whether the player or his representative have given his consent, an issue that Ramón Planes, the sports director chosen by Barkala, has not finished clarifying.

The spirits of the candidates have risen a few degrees more when Arechabaleta detected Jon Uriarte's ballots that Athletic fans would have given to members who wanted to vote for him.

The candidate Arechabaleta has not wanted to explain whose ballots they were but has claimed that, if this deception were confirmed with more cases, Uriarte's list should be annulled.

And the youngest candidate for the presidency of Athletic has appeared at the San Mamés stadium with a suitcase with the clothes that, if he wins the elections, he will appear as president of the rojiblanco club.

, underlined Uriarte, who during the campaign had suffered an internal mini-crisis that was about to cause the abandonment of his list of the electoral contest and that in recent days he announced that he was breaking his agreement with Carlos Aviña as sports director after revealing photos and homophobic and sexist messages that the Mexican coach made public when he was 21 years old.

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