New Barcelona midfielder and Mali international Seydou Keita (28) has revealed in two interviews last month that Barcelona already contacted the then Sevilla player in December about a tranfer this summer.
In an interview with French football site Foot Mercato, Keita stated that Barcelona was already working on his transfer for a long time: "I had already advanced contacts with Barcelona last December. It's always difficult to predict if a deal will go through but Barcelona wanted me and they knew I had a buyout clause. Of course it also depended on my performances.
Barcelona was already interested in me when I was playing for Lens and I was close to signing but in the end they prefered other players. Last december they came back because of my good season at Sevilla. The contacts were still there and since I had proven myself in the Liga, they made a quick decision. They weren't the only ones interested though. Juventus and Real Madrid also contacted me but I had given my word to Barcelona and didn't want to change that."
Keita kind of repeated the story in an interview with Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo a few weeks later: "Since I was a little boy I especially followed Barcelona and Marseille and I liked players like Romario, Koeman and Stoichkov. I knew that I would arrive here one day. When I was still playing for Lens, Txiki Begiristain already contacted my agent and tried to transfer me. And although I went to Sevilla, it was clear for me that my intention remained to come here.
Last December Txiki contacted us again and here I am. There were other clubs interested in me, amongst which Real Madrid and Juventus, but for me there was only one possible destination: Barcelona. It's a special club and for me without any doubt the best one there is."
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8 comments:
thats exactly why this players are valuable...
they are loyal, love the club and leave it all on the pitch.
Well if thats true then barcelona made an unethical foul contacting a player during the season while he is under contract with another team, he is my favorite transfer, but that wasnt a nice thing to know, right is right.
Everyone talks with everyone, Ramzi, let's not be naive. I don'tt see anything unethical about it. I would say "good work, Txiki" since he snatched him before Real Madrid and Juventus did. Interesting to elarn that they already started planning so soon.
Its interesting to be labeled as naive fcbee, thats a new experience for me :)
first in principle, Everyone lie, that will never make lying ethical, niether fixing games even though guess what!its happening! and what about taking drugs? getting under age players from africa to trial them in europian countries and if they failed thowing them on the streets in belguim and other europian countries to avoid paying the costs of getting them back to their countries!it is happening so lets dance as cheer leaders hailing it. Or you know what, lets go to africa and kidnap some talents for sale! its happening anyway...
Practicaly, a club like barcelona must work to improve the decpline in football, the way they behaved with Man UTD when they asked about C. Ronaldo, not the way real madrid behaved. they have one of the best youth academies in the world, if they dont make sure to follow the guidlines then Why do people bitch on england clubs rubing barcelona youth players? everything is fair in love and war...and football, right?
At least cover it up then.
Note:thats incase the news is true.
Who says that Sevilla didn't give its approval? Let's not jump to conclusions to fast.
But anyway, in Spain there's no rule that you can't talk with the player without the club's consent like in England, so I don't see the problem, Ramzi. There's no legal problem and the ethical problem I don't see either. It's a free world, so why can't you talk?
Unethical would for example be if they talk to a player in which they're not really interested just to make him perform worse or to make a player look for a confrontation with his club, which wasn't the case here.
fcbee The under age players have no contracts so dont be upset if some englisg parots picked some of barcelona youth players and signed them.
In spain,England and every where in the world its a law, norm, and mutual agreement that u dont talk to a player withought their team approval, thats the same reason y, for example, even when a player like lampard can buy out his contract, if a team wanted top buy him, they go to his club and negociate and sometimes pay more than the buying cluase amount, there are those norms, but i guess when ur team break it it sound sweet, when ur team get spanked because another team cross the line it become sour.
The guidline to sign players is the same every where, its UEFA guidline, remember Man utd reported Real madrid to Uefa and FIFA in C Ronaldo case, so lets make this straight.
secondly if his team already gave approval then there would be no negiciation with the team afterward as it obviously happened in the summer, the team give approval after they agree the transfer fee.
Finally, agents demand doccumented proposals even if under table so if u negociate with a player u r not interested in, you will get skrewed as a team at the end of the road, and in the world of football no team will gamble thru unsetling a player they dont need, then y the risk, this is a team sport, one normal player will not make a defference to be unsettled, and with mega stars u cant hide such process.
1. I don't know about that Uefa guideline, Ramzi. Madrid for example wasn't punished in this case while they have clearly spoken with Ronaldo without man Untied's consent.
Can't remember a non-English club being punished for that (while it happens all the time). Arsenal also wanted a case against Inter for Hleb but didn't hear anything about that anymore.
I only remmeber Ebnglish clubs punished by the English federation (I thought it was like that in the Ashley Cole to Chelsea case).
Between Spanish clubs you sure never hear this "I'm going to the Spanish federation or the Uefa" thing.
2. Don't understand exactly what you want to say but approval to start talking with the player isn't the same as approval about a transfer fee. In this case, Barcelona just paid the buyout fee.
3. Documents don't come in from first contact. There should be an agreement on some basic stuff first. And one unsettled key player can do a lot. But ok, this was a side discussion.
fcbee if the teams report to FIFA but get their complain rejected it doesn't mean that there is no guideline, or else the teams are not so stupid or "naive" to know that there is no guideline, when a judge say that someone is not guilty in the case of murder it doesn't mean the lay don't punish for murder, but there wasnt enough prove, and that's exactly the case of R.Madrid & Man UTD, there wasn't enough proof that madrid broke that condition, nothing prove they contacted C.Ronaldo, it was just marca and Co. and those are not a part of Madrid legal structure. It is not often that someone stupid come to the media and confess that it happened, hint understood?
English clubs do it more often because of the structure of clubs boards beside its more difficult to get foreign layers to England from outside, needing a work permit, so teams hunt each other players, again the kind of boards is different, but there is Mexes case for Roma, not exactly the same but it can give u a hint about guidelines.
Anyway, for being more than a club, and for the way Barcelona fans react every time England kidnap one of their young players, that wasn't the smartest thing to be done, though I doubt it happened at the first place, that's not Tkixi typical style.
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