BarcelonaCatalan football or Kings League? This is the debate that has opened following the announcement by Unió Esportiva Sants, a team of the Third Federation, to terminate by mutual agreement the contract of Cristian Ubón, a 22-year-old striker who in recent months has combined the activity with Sants and with El Barrio, the team with which he won the Kings League and with which he was proclaimed MVP.
“We cannot offer him the success he deserves and he does not want to harm the team more by not feeling in the right mindset to continue playing and defending our colors,” wrote Sants in a statement announcing the disengagement of the footballer. As has happened with other players from modest Catalan football teams, Ubón asked his club for permission to play in the Kings League matches.
“His situation had been very good until Saturday evening. When the Kings League came out, he asked for permission and we granted it, as long as he considered and prioritized Saints. On Saturday, however, he sent a message to the “coach communicating that he would not come to play a very important match for the club, because we are in relegation positions and we were playing against a direct rival, Vilafranca”, said the president of Sants, Joan Forcadell, in the program What are you playing with?. Ubón could have played with Sants on Sunday morning and arrived in time for the final four of the Kings League, which was played in the afternoon at Camp Nou. “We didn’t like the lack of commitment to the club and to his colleagues in the dressing room,” lamented Forcadell. Sants, with whom Ubón had a contract, has admitted that his teammates felt “betrayed” despite being aware that they “would have done the same”.
A few hours later, the board of directors of Sants met with the player and issued a statement in which they say they are in the middle of “a confrontation between purist football and the Kings League”. The Barcelona entity has shown its concern for the effect that Gerard Piqué’s new league may have on Catalan football. “As an organization we must defend our interests and those of Catalan football. It’s very good that they put together these forecasts, but with these ideas maybe we should help the grassroots football of all the clubs a little. Now they are talking about a league female and younger boys… Won’t we have boys for grassroots football? Will they all want to appear on television?”, criticized the president of Sants.
“We are not idiots”, in response to Kun Agüero
The Barcelona entity has anticipated that they will change the protocol for the players who want to participate in the next editions of the Kings League. “If this happens again, the clubs will operate in a different way. But this year we have been caught with the season already started, with our hands tied,” he assured. Sants, therefore, might not be the only club that forces its players to choose: either continue in Catalan football or participate exclusively in the new football 7 competition.
The respect demanded by Sants contrasts with the insults that former Manchester City and Barça player Sergio Agüero – president of one of the Kings League clubs, Kunisports – hurled at the club’s president over the Ubón case: “I I don’t know the president, but he is quite asshole. How do you want to deny him this experience, playing at Camp Nou? The next day I would go there and send him to take the sack”. The club has claimed its values and its education: “Who thinks that we are bad people or assholewho visits us and will understand that we are not such bad people.”