Barcelona president Joan Laporta survived a vote of confidence at the La Liga club on Sunday and will remain in office until 2010.Fans, disgruntled following a second straight season without silverware, headed to the polls after club member Oriol Giralt collected the 5,882 member signatures required to request a referendum on the Barca presidency.

Two thirds of supporters were required to vote 'yes' in order to force Laporta, who has been president since 2003 and was re-elected in 2006, out of the Nou Camp and a minimum of 10% of the club's members were required to vote. That number - 15,184 - was achieved around lunchtime, with a total of 37,294 members turning out to cast their ballot.

The majority - 23,870 (60.6%) - voted in favour but short of the 66% that the statute requires for the vote of censure to be successful.

Almost 15,000 members (37.75%) voted for Laporta, with the remainder either invalid or blank votes.

A statement on the club's official website, www.fcbarcelona.cat, read: "These results are insufficient for the vote of censure to go ahead, since the statutes of the club clearly state, in Article 49.5, 'a vote of censure will only be approved on obtaining two thirds or more of the votes cast'.

"As a consequence of these results, the present Board of Directors can continue with their responsibilities until the end of this term, in 2010."

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