BARCELONA – The president of Barcelona, Joan Laporta, ruled that the Barça club “is still in the UCI, but is improving” in an interview on the Sport Onze program ‘Onze’.
“There are data and parameters that indicate this. I want more than ever that this goes well, I do not regret having presented myself to be president of Barça,” he said in his first public statements after the closing transfer market.
Regarding the departure of Leo Messi, Laporta has insisted that “what was there is what was explained, they are objective data that everyone can contrast.” He added: “We were pressured that we would either sign the agreement with CVC, mortgaging Barça’s television rights for half a century, or we would not comply with Financial Fair Play.”
In addition, Laporta said that another trigger for the departure of the Argentine player was that at that time appeared “the first conclusions of the ‘due diligence’ and were very bad.”
The Barça president also acknowledged that he has not “spoken to Messi since his departure” at Paris Saint-Germain and that for him “it was a strange feeling to see him in another shirt and think that maybe this season “Barça will be able to” face “him. And he denied that there was any “outburst of tone from Jorge Messi”, the player’s father, during the negotiations.
Laporta was pleased with the salary cut achieved this summer: “We have gone from 110 percent of the payroll with respect to the club’s income to 80 percent (now at 412 million euros)” .
For this reason, he wanted to thank Mateu Alemany (director of the football area), Rafael Yuste (vice president of sports) and all the players who have reduced the payroll, especially the captains, and for others who are considering doing so, such as Samuel Umtiti. “
Asked if it would have been possible for Messi to stay if all these operations had been carried out before his departure, the Barça president ruled that “his salary could not have been paid anyway”.
But he admitted that this summer he tried to sign Neymar, as RAC1 reported on Monday. “We knew he was going crazy to get back to Barça and at the time we thought Javier Tebas’ interpretation of the financial Fair Play was different from what it has finally been, ”he argued.
As for Ronald Koeman, whose continuity was questioned at the end of last year, Laporta has assured that he has “all” his “support” and his “respect”, and explained that he speaks “with him habitually” as he has done “with the rest of the coaches” he has had.
“Johan Cruyff’s model is non-negotiable and Koeman knows it, he has a photo of Cruyff in his office, his ‘cruyffism’ is indisputable,” Laporta said when asked if he was a coach to his liking.
Barça’s latest signing, Luuk de Jong, a striker with great aerial play, was precisely a request from Koeman. During the interview Laporta defended this addition: “In Johan Cruyff’s ‘Dream Team’ there was Julio Salinas, a player in the style of Luuk de Jong. Today he talked to Jordi Cruyff, who his father also did things that they went a little out of style “.
Who left on the last day of the market was Antoine Griezmann bound for Atletico Madrid. For Laporta, the French striker “does not fit into Barça’s game system”. “We all expected more from Griezmann, but he has given it his all and I have never seen him have an attitude that could be criticized,” he added.
Laporta was also forceful about the future of the Superliga: “She is alive, we have won everything in the courts. UEFA cannot make any decision that harms us. There are clubs that ask us to move forward because that is what suits us. “The English clubs are the ones who pushed it, but they have a very strong pressure.”
And on the issues that are bringing to light the ‘due diligence’ that will be presented in detail at the October Assembly of Compromisers, Laporta announced that “alleged corruption and alleged criminal actions” are being found in the management of the board of Josep Maria Bartomeu. “We are analyzing whether responsibilities need to be debugged,” he added.