The Nico Williams situation kept many clubs busy this summer. In the end, Bilbao’s exceptional talent surprisingly extended his contract. Critical voices are now coming from Barcelona.
Ahead of Athletic Bilbao’s Champions League away game at Borussia Dortmund on Wednesday, there is headwind from Catalonia. In a major interview with Mundo Deportivo, a newspaper close to the club, Barcelona’s sporting director Deco rants about “nonsense” that was allegedly spread by Bilbao last summer.
The focus: Nico Williams. There had been weeks of speculation about a possible transfer for the Spanish European champion. In the end, however, rival Bayern Munich also came away empty-handed because the left winger surprisingly decided to stay in Bilbao and even extend his contract until 2035 (!).
Bilbao had previously publicly attacked FC Barcelona and also involved La Liga. “Within the framework of financial fair play, the possibility of FC Barcelona signing players was discussed, among other things,” the Basques explained at the end of June.
This behavior greatly displeased Deco. “I don’t want to comment on issues that don’t concern me. I take care of the players and the day-to-day business of the club,” he said, adding: “But I don’t think Bilbao is a role model in this regard. We didn’t approach any of their players, we didn’t pursue any of their players. They should rather take care of the agent who came to us several times to offer the player.”
“If you want to negotiate, tell me everything you need”
A few days before the contract extension, the transfer to Barcelona, which was considered likely, had already been thrown into doubt due to “unacceptable” guarantees. Deco did not want to go into details, but made a telling statement to Nico Williams’ side: “If you want to negotiate, tell me everything you need and what you want, and don’t change it later. That’s all. We said that we would not accept the conditions set for us because no player will set conditions for us, and in the end, nothing happened.“
The Luis Diaz option proved to be ”very difficult,“ and in the case of Marcus Rashford, Manchester United initially ”only wanted a sale.” So Barcelona agreed to the offer with Nico Williams. “He didn’t exactly fit the profile we wanted, but he can play both left and right.” In the end, he plays one thing above all else: in Bilbao and not in Barcelona.
