Barcelona president Joan Laporta insisted that Marcus Rashford was always the club’s first-choice option during a “complicated” process which also included extensive negotiations with Athletic Club starlet Nico Williams and Liverpool’s Luis Díaz.
Six months after first setting his sights on a move to Catalonia, Rashford belatedly signed for the Spanish champions on Wednesday. The Manchester United outcast made little secret of his desire to play alongside Lamine Yamal, yet Barcelona’s admiration has been less clear.
At various points over the summer, Hansi Flick’s side appeared to be in more keen on Díaz while a deal for Williams was thought to be on the verge of completion only to collapse at the last minute.
However Laporta, in typically bombastic fashion, claimed that the club have nabbed their No. 1 target. “It's been a more complicated situation due to the opinions coming from all sides,” the club president explained in a lengthy interview with Mundo Deportivo.
“There were several options, and I’m very happy because we ended up getting the option I liked most. It’s true that I also liked Luis Díaz, a very complete player, but due to his circumstances, with Liverpool very entrenched, it was complicated, although I’m grateful to the player for wanting to come at all times. The same thing happened with Nico Williams.”
Unlike Rashford or Díaz, Williams had a clear buyout clause which Barcelona could trigger to remove Athletic Club from negotiations. The Basque outfit publicly questioned whether their Catalan counterparts could afford a move for their star winger, making their case to La Liga, but reports claim that Williams was behind the deal’s eventual demise.
Having witnessed the contractual controversy surrounding Dani Olmo last season, Williams supposedly requested a clause be inserted in his Barcelona deal which would allow him to leave the club should they not be able to register him. Barça’s rebuttal of that demand proved to be a dealbreaker—much to the shock of those in Catalonia.
Laporta painted a different picture which framed Barcelona as the party with the most power in negotiations.
“We were in the process of negotiating with Rashford [when] Nico’s agent came to me offering the possibility of signing him,” Laporta claimed. “In principle, I preferred to work on the other two options [Rashford and Díaz], but in these cases, I always listen to the sporting director. He said we should at least listen because he’s an interesting player who can hold his own.
“Negotiations took place, but from what they told us to what ultimately happened, there was a big difference in terms of payment terms, the agent’s commission, and a series of variables that already suggested the deal wouldn’t happen. Deco set a 48-hour deadline, and if they didn’t accept our terms, we wouldn’t do the deal.”
“It wasn’t Athletic who prevented him from signing, nor was it Nico who didn’t want to come,” Laporta concluded, “but rather the conditions they presented to us that were unacceptable to us.”
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Complicated’—Barcelona President Makes Surprise Marcus Rashford Claim.
