Xavi breaks his silence and lashes out at Laporta and his right-hand man

BarcelonaXavi Hernández has broken his silence for the first time since leaving Barça. "I want to tell my truth. I decided not to make any statements after leaving the club out of respect for Barça," the Terrassa native said in an interview. The VanguardThe former Barcelona coach has explained his version of events after being dismissed. "I'm out because I stood up to Alejandro Echevarría. That's how this Barça works; it's practically run by Alejandro Echevarría, who went around talking to players like Sergi Roberto, Araujo, Pedri, and Raphinha and told them I wanted to sell them." The Terrassa native explained that after announcing his departure at the end of the season, the board tried to convince him to stay, although he had doubts. After Barça's elimination against PSG in the Champions League, Echevarría—Laporta's right-hand man—told Xavi that most of the directors weren't sure about him continuing. However, according to Xavi, at a dinner at Laporta's house, she convinced him to stay. "I only asked for one change in the squad; we were only letting go of one player, not ten."

Less than a week before the elections, Xavi lashed out at Laporta's board. "I want it to be known that things at Barça aren't working well. I want the members to understand what's happening at Barça and, honestly, that the club needs a complete overhaul—a change in structure, in professionalism... We can't depend on people who aren't honorable." The former Barça player strongly criticized Echevarría. "Deco is being held hostage by Echevarría, who's the one making the decisions." In this regard, he acknowledged the power this figure wields at the club. "I signed for Barça thanks to Laporta, but he ended up letting me down. He got rid of me without telling me the truth, influenced by Alejandro Echevarría." Xavi also confessed that he should have left after the departures of Jordi Cruyff and Mateu Alemany. "When others started making the decisions, the team started to decline, and not by chance."

Regarding Leo Messi, the Terrassa native explains that it was Laporta who didn't want him to return. "The president started negotiating the contract with Messi's father, and we had the green light from La Liga, but it's the president who's holding everything up. Laporta told me verbatim that if Messi came back, he would wage war against him, and he couldn't allow that."

Laporta maintains that it was Messi who rejected signing for Barça.

The words of the Terrassa-born coach have been the subject of debate in the first head-to-head electoral debate between Joan Laporta and Víctor Font. In fact, Messi was the first name brought up, and Laporta opted to kill the messenger by saying that Xavi is "hurt." This was a way of downplaying Xavi's words, attributing them to the fact that "with the same squad that was losing under him, they're winning with Flick." Xavi had assured everyone that the contract was finalized and had received the green light from La Liga. Laporta clarified that in 2023 it was Xavi who contacted Messi, that the Argentine wanted to return to Barcelona, ​​and that a contract offer was made, but that a few months later Jorge Messi – Leo Messi's father – contacted Laporta to say that he was rejecting the offer because at Barça "he would be under too much pressure." In this way, he placed all the blame on Messi. In his rebuttal, Font argued that "Messi thinks as Xavi explained it" and accused the former president of having "a long history of lies and broken promises."