Thursday 9 July 2009

Laporta commenting on the transfer season

Barcelona president Joan Laporta commented on the transfer events in an interview with Spanish tlevision channel TVE.



Villa
It's a player we're interested in. The technical department has made enquiries to know more about his situation but we don't know if things will get complicated because of everything that is going on at Valencia. We have made a very good bid. I personally made an offer to [Valencia president] Llorente. We're not talking about 60 or 50 millions here, it's closer to 40 millions.

Ribéry
If we can get him at a normal price, we're interested. He was on our target list but Bayern doesn't seem willing to sell him. Although they know we're intersted in case they would think about a transfer. Because of the good relationships between the clubs, they will keep us informed.

Eto'o
The whole situation with Eto'o saddens me because we have a good personal relationship. I've called him a couple of times, but I haven't been able to talk to him, I don't know if he changed his mobile phone or his number or if his entourage has said him something or they don't want us to talk or what is happening.

We've always had a clear and direct relationship. I would like to talk to him in a calm way because I really would want to know his point of view about what has happened. It's true that I've said him last year that I didn't want to see him ever again, there was some anger from my side. But we've made up since then.


At the start he wanted a good contract. We've already offered him a better one and now we've offered him two more years. He has said that he would think about it and we're waiting for his answer. If he doesn't accept the offer, the normal thing would be that he doesn't stay.

Manchester City has shown interest, we've explained them the situation but for now he's a Barcelona player. The thing is that his contract expires next year so we have to find an agreement. We more or less know what his plans are. I would like him to stay, although it's true that the coach in any case wants to strengthen the centre forward position.


Cesc
We're not excluding any options and all the players we were interested in are still on the market.


Read more:
Laporta comments on the transfer market
Picture of the day: Villa and Laporta
Laporta comments again on the transfer market

36 comments:

AJ said...

Laporta you snake! Stop lying you scum bag! It sucks that he turns out like this towards the end of his tenure after being the most succesful Presi we ever had...

trez said...

Presidents should keep quiet, honestly. Now with all trophies won, he comes out and he's on every channel.

Leave the working to Txiki (well, if we can call what he's doing working...) and the talking to Pep!

skanjos said...

"It's true that I've said him last year that I didn't want to see him ever again, there was some anger from my side"

hm..... thats sth i hear for the first time....eto just sign a new contract and dont worry the board will change next year,also i dont think you have a problem with pep and i think the board pushed pep last year to sell eto.it wasnt needed.

Aussie Barca Fan said...

Laporta should be congratulated for what he has achieved at Barca. He was a very, very brave man to appoint Pep as Manager when everyone thought he was crazy.

I do think however he is completely out of line here. Why would he say let alone admit that he never wanted to see Eto'o again. If someone had said that to me, I would have been deeply offended and probably walked away. Eto'o has shown tramendus character when both the coach and President didn't want him and now he finds himself in the same predicament.

The club should pull their head in. I think they have handled this very, very poorly. If Eto'o walks on a free transfer then you could hardly blame him. I certainly won't.

raidall said...

now you are talking laporta
from the beginning i knew that someone is not telling the truth and it is laporta who started all this and now you want make it up again?

do you think that eto'o is a stupid blackman?

last season you wanted him out and but you made it up again. he forgave you and this season you did the same again and then you expect from him to forgive you again. HELL NO

in an intervieuw you said that messi is not for sale because you love him. so if i understan you very good then it seemed that you don't love eto'o?

is it because he's black?

and i heard that you will sell him to get fabregas or sell yaya toure to get him.

why do you hate the black folks in the team while barca has a slogan say no to racism.

you want to offer the black guys to get a player who is not worthier then them.

why can't you sell guddy and hleb for fabregas?

please someone answer me why laporta is doing all this to the black guys?

pep please can you answer me?


peace

hawk_barca_4_life said...

laporta is the best hope next year sme one 4m his team continues .... !!!
dont care abt wht the press makes him to say as a press u have to answer !!!!
barca 4 ever !!!!

groga said...

It's not about black guys, don't get that argument in. It's normal he prefers the former youth players because they're kind of simbolizing what the club stands for: produding players instead of signing them. Now they're also some black players in the youth academy, so soon they'll be among the favourites too.

hawk_barca_4_life said...

lol how can u go to such extend of hating .... if it was the thing of black guy then we would never have bought keita forget abt etoo.... and keita would never had been the staff and coach fav player

just remember the decission r taken by the board including laporta trikxi guardiola and the requirement of coaching staff
sme decission can go wrong like of hleb or caceras ... sme can benefit like pique or messi situation when we took him under us
so he wants fabregas coz now due to pique they want to make a safer bet than that like of caceras or hleb

its ok after all not all ppl are liked by every one ...peace..!!

skanjos said...

lol m8 its not about racism i bet most barcelona fans want hleb and guddy out rather yaya.

Anonymous said...

You guys are so venomous against Laporta for no reason. Who cares if he wanted Eto'o out last year? Everyone knew that already. We wanted to start over from the previous era, which is why we sold Ronaldinho and Deco. It's a normal, business decision, there's no reason to hold a grudge. Get over it. Players get sold all the time. A club wanting to sell a player and get a transfer fee to buy someone else is nothing new, and quite normal.

First you guys are mad because Laporta was 'lying', he's revealing the truth of what happened and you guys are even madder.

@groga...uh it's not about preferring former youth players, nor is it about ignoring African players. Anyone who uses any combination of race-related argument, or black players not being among the favorites so far do not know what they're talking about. the reasoning was based on Eto'o the player, his personality, the club wanting to start afresh, etc, etc, it has nothing to do with his being black, in any way.

@Aussie Barca Fan...you're completely off base. You make it seem like Laporta committed a crime because he wanted Eto'o out.

Didn't we also try to force Laporta out? And he withstood the pressure and forced his Guardiola selection through. Now we won the treble. Laporta withstood all the embarrassment and pressure to stay with the club and helped us win the the treble. According to you now Laporta has gained the 'right' to hurt the club because we tried to force him out. If Eto'o is afforded that right then Laporta should be afforded that right.

You guys are blaming Laporta for complete nonsense. If Laporta mishandled a situation then tell us how he mishandled the situation. Don't just start insulting Laporta and calling him a racist.

groga said...

Gurardiola was selected by Txiki. Laporta didn't have a hand in that. He just leaves all sporting issues to Txiki, which is a good thing. If he also stops talking about it, it would even be better.

And I'm just saying it's not race.

And Toure's agent also complained about laporta favouring the youth players, that he's always talking about the cantera guys, etc. He should be careful with that and find a good balance.

djoef said...

If my boss calls me during my holidays, I won't answer the phone either, I can tell you that!

skanjos said...

anony :Who cares if he wanted Eto'o out last year?

i care,eto never ever droped his form during his stay at the club,he got serius injuries for 2 years 2-4 months each and returned the same goal scoring machine he was ,heck even better .the board crossed him once,now again for a 2nd time.does he deserve that treatment?
if they dont want him they should say it to his face.what now?laporta comes again in the media and tells that eto isnt answering his phone,i bet he didnt even call eto,he can settle this with eto but nooooo.... lets come out and involve the media again. its the 100th time he is using media attacks against eto and that is bad m8 .

mariop said...

laporta turned our team to be the best. Eto.o is on of the best attackers but eto'o complain and disturbe the stability of the team. he is not the time of player who control his word; he is not similar to kaka or david villa (professional players in press conference in their interviews).
Eto'o had made alot to barca but at the same time barca had turned him the a high level;Finally no player bigger than his club......

IBES said...

Laporta wanted him gone after Eto'o cowardly missed the Madrid game and lied about the yellow card. Most of the fans wanted him gone after that and showed their disgust at him when he scored the following game and Eto'o flashed how many goals he had scored that season. Like scoring goals is more important than titles and ditching your teammates to the side. I can't fault Laporta for telling Eto'o that he is done with him. When you intentionally miss a game against Real Madrid by getting booked and then lying to the press about not knowing you are one booking away from suspension, then you lose all credibility in whatever you say.

Also, did you not see that Laporta said he offered him a better new contract (which Eto'o's agent never once mentioned in his speech nor the terms) AND then the latest offer of 2 more years. That's 2 different deals. Funny how the agent only bothered to mention the last one. They offered him a new deal, Eto'o wanted more, and the club said thanks but no thanks.

Eto'o looks like the bad guy after his agent's speech, where he admitted he may have embelished a bit, and seems to care only about money.

He wants to be paid 10 mil a season. That's too much for a striker with limited capabilities, known history of being a head case (head butting a reporter last summer), and misses part of a season to be in Africa.

Blame Laporta for valid reasons - letting stars get away with anything; new stadium renovation deal; taking forever to fire Rijkaard; stripping down to his boxers at the airport. This one is not his fault.

Liverpool already balked at Eto'o's salary demands and so have other big clubs too. He is pricing himself out and if he cannot take the hint that he is no longer needed, then he has to go. No player is above the club and no player holds the club hostage either like what Ribery is doing to Bayern.

Laporta is a president with some flaws but in this debate versus Eto'o, there is only one person to blame. Eto'o.

trez said...

No president is bigger than the club either.

Laporta also isn't the type of president "who controls his words". Because of his statements about the mega-offer by City which would make Eto'o the best paid player in the world, the whole thing exploded again...

Anyway, we'll see how things will turn out this time.

groga said...

It's not abetter contract this time, we saw the e-mail from Sanllehi. He just says: we gave him a rise (before) and (now) we offer him two more years with the same.

raidall said...

i'm not saying that he is a racist he just give me that feeling.

can you please give me a honest answer on what i'm gonna ask you now.

is fabregas better than toure?
or is he better than eto'o?

barca is not a team who sells player just for the money.
they sell you if you are not at your high level anymore.

and for me the last season toure and eto'o were incredible compared with fabregs who started to lose arsenals games after he returned from injuri.

while he was injured arsenal were winning games but when he got back in the squad they started to lose games.

then how can you replace a player who had a outstanding season for a player who had a poor season?

if we must get him so badly sell hleb and guddy for arsenal and give them a 20mil.
so we can save another 20m for something else. and then promote a youth player.

for me fabregas can come over to barca cuz i love to watch him play but you can't not replace him for a player who gave his life to barca

sorry for some people who does not understand me what i'm talking about

peace

Anonymous said...

Laporta is a little bit of a cheap show-off with not very good manners but what matters for me is that the team did well under his reign.

Well, the coaches and the players did well and he takes advantage of that. For the trophy list, he'll be among the greatest presidents. For his personality, not.

skanjos said...

ibes m8 etos agent said that they offered a new contract to eto with a PAYCUT and the last day before the conferance they offered THE SAME CONTRACT with 2 more years.

laporta is saying that they offered eto a "better" contract and then they offered eto a 2 year expansion contract in his current one.

hm its not tough to see what is going on here is it and who is lying?

check the article of pep "when do the current contracts expire" and see which players the club wants to secure and which can leave and isnt as valuable.if you want a guy you dont let his contract end and then renew it last year except if it a captain and you are sure he will sign it like puyol...

groga said...

Drop the racism argument, raidall. It has nothing to do with it, you see things that aren't there.

utility73 said...

Laporta is currently talking way too much for my taste.

Yet still I'd never accuse him of lying (in the case of Eto'o) and I believe nobody else here could do it with any decent level of confidence.

Noone here knows what's really going between the club officials and agent Eto'o behind the scenes.

All in all and for all I know Laporta has been doing extremely outstanding job for Barça so far.

Anonymous said...

Hey what do you mean by cheap show-off? Through out the season show me one incident when he boasted of our success... He's been repeating the same thing we still aren't the champions, we still gotta do a lot, etc as if it were some mantra to success, LOL. He just used to say he's proud of his boys for sticking to their philosophy irrespective of the results and the pressure. Hell even when we thrashed the Madridistas at bernabeu he remained totally humble. Not until we were crowned champions had he expressed his happiness in media.He led the team like a true leader, set up a very good example through out the season. Just shut the fuck up b4 criticising the president, period.
Pep, help needed please :)

IBES said...

@ skanjos.

At the start he wanted a good contract. We've already offered him a better one and now we've offered him two more years.

Unless it's lost in translation and I am sure Pep can verify it here for us, looks to me that they did offer him a much better deal first and then the second deal of same pay.

The agent said they had a meeting, then met again and the club changed their mind. You're telling me that they only met to discuss summer plans or met and heard the Barcelona's offer and then countered with their offer which Barcelona thought was too much?

To me, it seems that Laporta said they offered him a new deal and then offered him another deal with same pay and 2 more years.

The agent did show us that text but did not bother to mention the details of the first deal. The second deal was sent as a take it or leave it since they knew there was a press conference involved. They are telling Eto'o that he is non grata since he and his agent were going to air it out in public.

There has been talks with Man City by all 3, not just the clubs. I don't believe anything that comes out of that agent's mouth and Eto'o is nowhere to be seen to back it up. Letting your agent do the talking, and a bad one at that, is not convincing me that Eto'o is getting the raw end of the deal.

Villa will be making 7.5 mil when he comes to the club. Samu reportedly wants 10mil. That is too much. Liverpool said no earlier in the season when there was talk of 8 mil a season.

Eto'o has himself to blame. If he stays, he might hurt his chances of getting a great contract if he gets injured playing for Barcelona or in Africa. Who is going to shell out the money for an injured player (Real Madrid?)

It's not a white or black thing. Eto'o has always been a head case with his rants to the press, vilafranco speech, storming off after being subbed and not wanting to be used as a sub, head butting a reporter, getting fined three times by Pep and asked to hit the showers during training, and so on. As for Yaya, he got a new deal but that agent of his is a disgrace to insult fellow players (Keita who also happens to be black) and wonder how they will respect Yaya when he goes into the training room next season.

Footballing wise, Eto'o is not worth 10 a season for a strker who has a poor first touch, weak passing and aerial threat, cannot defeat defenders one on one and disappears against defensive teams like Chelsea.

I thank him for the great years but it's time to go.

lol at the word verification - "messit"

Anonymous said...

The mantra was Guardiola's... The whole club took it over.

He's just a rather cheap guy, which doesnt mean he's bad for the club. He once stripped down to his underwear at the airport, he once threw out his driver and insulted him in public, he has wrong friends like the Uzbek dictator's family.

Read this for example:

http://pitchinvasion.net/blog/2009/03/15/bunyodkor-barcelona-and-the-dictators-daughter/

pep said...

The statement is not really clear but my interpretation is:

His current contract is already an upgraded one (compared with the one he signed in 2004) and now we're offering him two more years at the same conditions (as his current contract).

The agent said that they first offered a renewal with a pay cut and that the night before the press conference there was the offer to renew for two more years at the same conditions.

barca nike said...

IBES is right word by word

woo sah said...

i dont usually say these kinds of things but raidall...just please shut up. race has nothing to do with any of this. toure just penned a new contract and he's not going any where. cesc is only being talked about because we need a back up for xavi...and obviously everyone knows the situation with eto'o and how laporta wants him out.

which brings me to...stop freaking hatin on the prez. it's a part of football...sometimes players are not deemed wanted or necessary anymore. people thought we were crazy for letting go of ronaldinho at such a cheap price but look at how benifcial it turned out for us. all i'm saying is as long as we are successful i can not find fault with laporta. and like i mentioned before...NO ONE i mean NO ONE knows for sure who's telling the truth and who's lying between eto'o and laporta so stop saying that laporta is a snake or a liar.

sashi said...

wat i feel is in perfect unison with IBES. absolutely true. now ppl guys, dont just speak as though Eto is a saint and Laporta is a d-head. i agree Laporta has every right to make such statements because he is the one running the club and its important that he makes good decisions.

skanjos said...

do you really believe that they offered eto a pay rise(cause thats a better deal)?seriusly ?

its a fact that there were 2 offers we both agree on that one and we both agree that the 2nd offer is at the same wage with 2 more years.

do you honeslty believe they had offered a better deal before the conferance?and then took it back and offered the same to convince him?wtf is with this new logic......
cant convince me or any person with a brain m8.the old offer has to be smaller than the newer or else there wouldnt be any need for the new bid.you dont say here i give you 7mil a year and when the player calls a conferance you try to convince him and tell him "ok i will convince you with my bid ,how about 6mil?" it doesnt make any sence m8.at all

how can some people be so naive ....

mariop said...

I told you yesterday obout a deal had been reach through el mundodeportivo but no one had beleived me !!!!!!!!!!!!!!
villa=41millions+gudy on loan

Unknown said...

yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I am so happy since I read that villa is joining:)
he will wear number 7 now that guddy is going
barca!!!!

IBES said...

skanjos said...
do you really believe that they offered eto a pay rise(cause thats a better deal)?seriusly ?

I believe they gave him a better deal. Not a pay cut. Always heard that rumour and never saw that proven and in the press conference, I didn't see the agent admit a pay cut - he did admit in the same press conference that he he might have lied a bit or embelished according to my friend in Barcelona who listened to the speech on the radio.

I believe they gave him a new deal without salary cuts or same salary. Eto'o then asked for more, 10 mil, and the team said thanks but no thanks.

Once they found out that Eto'o and his agent would talk to the press, they emailed him another offer of same salary. It doesn't take a genious to see that the last offer was more or less an indication that wanted him to take City's offer and that he is no longer needed.

Harsha said...

the lady interviewer in the pic has sexy legs ! loll... :-)

Carrer de Corsega said...

Yes, she is one of the hotter ones on Spanish TV...besides the soap opera shit they show all the time!!

Laporta is starting to hug the spotlight like Mark Cuban! How can you blame him, it's his last year! Prepare for more!

Anonymous said...

let me guess raidall your black.man i cant stand idiots talkin for the sake of talkin.oh and peace

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