Several rumors out of Spain state that Barcelona President Joan Laporta has decided to fire manager Xavi Hernandez at the end of the current campaign.
While Barcelona was playing Almeria on Wednesday night, it became apparent that Laporta was extremely incensed over Xavi’s remarks made at his pre-match press conference and was under pressure to fire him from other board members. His comments that it would be tough to compete with Real Madrid and that Barcelona had no intention of bringing Vitor Roque in this January did not go down well. People believe that Xavi has broken the agreements they made when they first met in order to decide not to return for the upcoming season.
RAC1 has now announced that he will be fired. Laporta has made the decision to sack Xavi from the coaching the role for the upcoming season. El Chiringuito also stated that he was 99% gone on Wednesday night, and Cadena Cope had stated that he was closer to departing than staying. Jordi Baste revealed the information on Thursday morning. Prior to the RAC1 news, Marca and MD had stated that nothing would be done about their dissatisfaction with Xavi’s press conference. However, they had not disclosed that Laporta was also thinking about being fired.
Xavi had decided to leave at the end of the season without demanding payment for the balance of his contract, so it is unclear if the split would be cordial. Barcelona would be spending more than €10 million between him and his employees during a difficult financial period. It will undoubtedly affect their quest for a new manager as well, since any potential coach will find such institutional instability unappealing.
