{"id":513513,"date":"2026-03-09T19:12:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:12:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/513513\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T19:12:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T19:12:10","slug":"joan-laporta-fires-back-at-xavi-as-he-brutally-criticises-barcelona-legends-managerial-skills-says-hansi-flick-is-winning-games-with-the-same-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/513513\/","title":{"rendered":"Joan Laporta fires back at Xavi as he brutally criticises Barcelona legend’s managerial skills & says Hansi Flick is ‘winning games with the same players’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A central point of the feuding parties is the collapsed return of Lionel Messi to Camp Nou in 2023. Xavi has claimed that Laporta deliberately vetoed the transfer<\/a> despite having La Liga’s green light for the move. Laporta, however, insists the decision was financial and based on the player’s own concerns about the pressure involved in a return to his spiritual home, rather than a move to wage war on the Argentine icon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Messi, when we couldn\u2019t renew his contract due to financial reasons, in 2023 he told me that Messi wanted to return. I sent the contract to Jorge Messi, who later came to my house and told me that he would have too much pressure here,\u201d Laporta clarified. This contradicts Xavi\u2019s assertion that the deal was virtually done from a sporting perspective before the president allegedly ‘threw everything out’ at the final moment.<\/p>\n

The tension between the pair also extended to the transfer market, with Xavi revealing his frustration over missed targets like Martin Zubimendi, who is now shining under Mikel Arteta’s tutelage with Premier League giants Arsenal. The former coach stated that his attempts to sign the midfielder were blocked by the board<\/a>, who cited financial constraints. Laporta countered this by suggesting that Xavi had lost faith in the squad he already had, becoming overly critical of the group\u2019s ability to compete with rivals Real Madrid.<\/p>\n

\u201cXavi explains in the interview the reasons why I fired him. He became complacent and couldn\u2019t balance his professional and personal life. He said that Barca wouldn\u2019t be competitive with Real Madrid. He asked to change players, and I told him he couldn\u2019t continue. Xavi was dissatisfied with the squad and the referees. He said the squad wasn\u2019t competitive. It was a recurring theme,\u201d the president added during his rebuttal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A central point of the feuding parties is the collapsed return of Lionel Messi to Camp Nou in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513514,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69],"tags":[418,10535,103094,16952,403,99,232671],"class_list":["post-513513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-barcelona","tag-champions-league","tag-h-flick","tag-laliga","tag-soccer","tag-sports","tag-x-hernandez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513513\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}