Maybe Marca are stirring the Barcelona pot, or maybe they’re on the right track. Either way, the Spanish newspaper’s Friday edition contains an interesting article about Ernesto Valverde’s contractual situation at the Camp Nou, with his current deal ending in June.
Usually this would seem a straightforward situation. Barcelona would use their option to extend for a further year, Valverde would agree, and everyone carry on without even the slightest of fuss.
Alternatively, the two parties could even agree a whole new deal, furthering their commitment to one another.
But Marca believe things aren’t so simple, and that’s why the contract situation hasn’t been changed yet. Valverde is said to be unhappy with how the club’s president Josep Bartomeu briefed the media with negative tales after Champions League defeat to AS Roma.
Winning La Liga and the Copa del Rey ‘mitigated’ the issue, explain Marca, but the ‘idyllic’ relationship that had been there was cracked, and the ‘wound’ remains.
It’s explained that Valverde has learned that when it comes to ‘matters of the market’ he’ll be ignored. Evidence of this is put forward as the departure of Robert Fernandez, the departure of Paulinho, Malcom arriving, and the club’s failure to sign a left back.
A managerial change next summer is presented as a possibility, and the longer the option to extend isn’t taken up, or a new deal negotiated, then the more these type of stories will appear… regardless of how well Barcelona may do on the pitch.
