Barcelona sporting director Deco has broken his silence on the club’s failed attempt to sign Julian Alvarez from Atletico Madrid, defending the Catalan giants and insisting that they handled the transfer pursuit correctly.
The saga had remained one of the biggest stories of Barcelona’s summer, with the club making a serious attempt to bring the Argentine forward to Camp Nou. Now, Deco has revealed more details about what happened behind the scenes.
Speaking to RAC1, Deco rejected suggestions that Barcelona had acted in bad faith during the negotiations for Alvarez.
“There are things we can’t talk about. We did things right,” Deco explained, revealing that Barcelona made an offer worth €100 million to be paid over three years, but Atletico Madrid did not respond to it.
Deco also explained that Barcelona president Joan Laporta had spoken to Atletico officials several times in a respectful manner, before the Madrid club made it clear that they did not want to sell Alvarez.
The Barcelona sporting director also strongly denied that the Catalan club had asked Alvarez to publicly state during the World Cup that he wanted to leave Atletico Madrid.
Deco then recalled a similar situation from his own playing career, when he was at Porto and wanted to join Barcelona in 2003.
However, Deco stressed that his situation was different from Alvarez’s because Barcelona wanted to sign the Argentine, while Atletico simply refused to sell him.
He also revealed another interesting detail from the transfer saga, admitting that former Barcelona colleague and current Atletico sporting director Mateu Alemany did not respond to an email he sent during the summer.
Despite that, Deco insisted that he has no personal problem with Alemany and said that he does not want to continue discussing Alvarez because the matter is now in the past.
However, the Alvarez story may not be completely over. Barcelona remain interested in the Argentine forward, with work reportedly already taking place behind the scenes regarding a possible future attempt to sign him.