Mateu Alemany decided to turn down Aston Villa and ask to stay at Barcelona because the Villans project was not what had initially been presented to him.
That’s according to Mundo Deportivo, who back up claims that Aston Villa didn’t quite have the money that he was expecting.
Earlier today we covered a report from Sport that stated Alemany had decided to reverse his decision to join Aston Villa as they were not willing to invest the sums that had initially been suggested.
Mundo pick up on that thread and say his decision to back down and stay at Barcelona was because the ‘magnitude’ of the job at Aston Villa ‘wasn’t what he expected’.
While the economic offer from Villa’s owners was very generous, it was the size of the project outside his wages that left him disappointed.
He had been told that Aston Villa’s project was ‘going to be like Manchester City’s’, where vast sums have been spent expanding the club and increasing staff, structure, facilities and even building a network of clubs around the world.
However, after ‘speaking at length’ with those in charge at the club, Alemany considered that the project ‘was not of the depth’ that he had initially managed. Therefore, without having signed yet, he returned to Barcelona to meet with Joan Laporta and discuss the turnaround.
He explained to the Barcelona president that he was regretting his decision to join Aston Villa and the two quickly struck an agreement for him to remain at the Camp Nou.
The big question is why Barcelona announced his departure initially, but Mundo say that everything was in place for it to happen before Alemany went about ‘verifying that Aston Villa’ was not what he thought it was going to be. At that point he cancelled the idea and set about continuing at Barcelona.
How much of this is fact, of course, remains to be seen but the slant from the Catalan press seems to be that Aston Villa oversold their hand and couldn’t back up the big promises they had made.
