Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Barcelona Have Acted Disgracefully, and We Should Ignore Them

Since the Cesc Fabregas transfer saga broke, FC Barcelona have been utterly disrespectful to Arsenal and despicable.

When Fabregas allegedly told Arsene Wenger he wanted to leave for FC Barcelona, he said he wanted his future sorted before the World Cup. In an effort to drive down his price, Joan Laporta encouraged him to go public with his alleged desire to leave Arsenal. Technically, Laporta having this sort of contact while Fabregas is under contract at Arsenal is tapping up, which Barcelona have done throughout this whole saga. Barcelona then made an insultingly low bid of £29 million. They claimed that they would pay no more, because Fabregas was "stolen" from them by Arsenal and developed at Barcelona.
2 points about that: 1. It was well within FIFA rules for Arsenal to sign him when he was 16. He had no contract at Barcelona, and was worried that he wouldn't play. 2: Barcelona are only doing this because he became an excellent player. It's like Xavi is claiming Fran Merida has Barca DNA.

Despite Arsenal being clear about their refusal to enter negotiations, Barcelona continued their underhand approach to our captain. They went to the press claiming they had agreed personal terms. Every day it seemed a press release would be on the official website claiming the deal would be done. Barcelona's players went to the press talking about Barca DNA and what not. Finally, yesterday, during the Spanish celebration, Pique and Puyol forced a Barca shirt on Cesc. To be fair to Cesc he never enetered into bullshit discussion. He wanted his teammates to shut up. He said how great Arsenal and Arsene Wenger are. And he took the Barca shirt off. It's became painfully clear what Barca want: They want Cesc as a trophy, and they want to bully there way to get him because they are in serious debt.

Last week they made a loan for €150 m. According to this article, they are in €392m of debt. Joan Laporta and Sandro Rosell knew this. However, instead of saying to Cesc that they couldn't afford him, but they could in the future, they used the press to destablilze Cesc at the club. My belief is that someone at Barca told Puyol and Pique to put the shirt on him. Why else would it be on their official site? Despite saying they would respect Arsenal, they haven't at all. They've gone to the press, complained that the press drove the price up and have tried to bully their way to buying Cesc Fabregas. Arsenal have repeatedly said he is not for sale; Arsene Wenger refused to meet with Sandro Rosell.

My advice to fellow fans is to ignore everything about Cesc unless it comes from Cesc himself or Arsenal. And I hope very much that Arsenal report Barcelona for tapping up and break off relations with Barcelona. If Cesc puts in a transfer request, he doesn't have to be sold to Barcelona. He could always be sold to Real Madrid, which would be Barcelona's (Or the Catalan Real Madrid) worst nightmare.

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