Mateu Alemany leaves Barça due to lack of powers in sports matters

2023-05-03 13:14:02

BarcelonaTense hours at the Barça offices. The departure of Mateu Alemany, announced minutes after a decisive victory for the first team in the League, took the club by surprise, which had turned the Mallorcan executive into an idol since Joan Laporta signed him to command the area of football just after winning the elections. Especially the new generations painted him as a relentless achiever in a context of Barça’s economic depression. The nicknamed Mateu Padremany had the power to make the illusions of a fan lacking references in a tie come true after the years with Josep Maria Bartomeu in the box office. That is why he was chanted in the presentations of the new players, something neither Andoni Zubizarreta, nor Robert Fernández, nor Raül Sanllehí nor Pep Segura, to give recent examples, had ever experienced.

The social mass read Alemany as the experienced and technocratic right hand of the charismatic Laporta in football matters, which is of interest to all sectors of Barcelona fans. An interpretation that fits with the short-term impact of the Mallorcan’s departure. “The Mateu-Jordi-Xavi triangle is broken, which involved a healthy debate before making decisions: Mateu from a numbers point of view, and Jordi and Xavi with a more sporting look”, point to the ARA from the offices of Sant Joan Despí, where there is a certain consensus in saying that, if Alemany has agreed to help Barça until the end of the market, so it will be. “He has his word and a stain on his reputation will not be allowed. Another thing is that the coexistence makes sense if a new football director arrives now,” counters another source, more skeptical about the duplicity of positions that may occur if the prediction of the press release issued by the club to explain the news is fulfilled.

Alemany leaves after receiving a superior offer from Aston Villa, a Premier League club controlled since 2018 by Egyptian tycoon Nassef Onsi Sawiris, who plans to continue spending big to build a title-contending team. In the offices, the entity has Damià Vidagany, an old acquaintance of Mateu’s in Valencia. And the squad is currently managed by another Spaniard, Unai Emery, who left Villarreal in the middle of this season, also tempted by the sporting and economic project.

This is the key to the Mallorcan executive’s decision: in Birmingham he will have money to make signings and full powers to decide and execute them, two premises that were not being fulfilled in Barcelona. The first, because the financial situation of the Blaugrana club is a drama: revenues are not reviving (nor will they revive in Montjuïc), the income statement shows losses and the salary margin of the League is exceeded with too many duties to do, starting with regularizations by Gavi and Ronald Araujo. And the second, because the tendency of Laporta and some of his collaborators to stick their noses in sports matters has ended up burning him.

Alemany is not clear about Messi

The main dissension between Alemany and the president has to do with Leo Messi: two years ago with his continuity and now with his possible return. Before August 2021, the day of the traumatic and unexpected departure, Mateu already warned the board that it would be almost impossible to fit the new contract of 10, taking into account the serious situation of the entity. He even stopped the intention to sell Ansu Fati, a fact that could mean an inflow of money to make salary space. He believed that extending the 10’s career at Barça could in no way imply giving up the future represented by the Spanish Guinean and also by Pedri, whom he renewed in the face of the insistence of other clubs to sign them. Two years after that fight from which he emerged victorious, Laporta insists again with Messi in a context that has not improved much, since the entity continues to be in the financial well. At this point, Alemany does not see clearly that the project must be conditioned by this desire and jumps off the boat despite having another year of contract.

Other decisions that have deteriorated the position of the Balearic in the organizational chart are the failed signing of César Azpilicueta, the renewals of Sergi Roberto and Ousmane Dembélé, the small print of the arrival of Raphinha or the presidential refusal to sell Frenkie de Jong. Taking into account these precedents, the ARA has consulted whether Alemany’s departure may mean that Iñigo Martínez, a bet of his, disappears from the priorities of the sports area in the registration of players in the League. The answer has been that the Basque center is already committed and that no change of plans is foreseen.

Very different alternatives: Antonio Cordón and Anderson Deco

In these moments of uncertainty, Mateu’s resignation might not be the last to happen before June 30 in the Barça sports area. Jordi Cruyff, sporting director, also urges himself to reflect on his future at the club. The same goes for more technical and less media profiles who work in the department, whether in administrative tasks or scouting. Antonio Cordón, until recently the sports director of Betis, sounds like a relief, but Blaugrana sources deny to the ARA that any agreement has been closed with the executive from Extremadura, with past also in Monaco and the Ecuadorian Federation, where he agreed precisely with Cruyff. Another candidate is Anderson Luiz da Souza Decoformer player of the entity, representative of Raphinha, collaborator of Jorge Mendes and intimate of Laporta, as Rac1 has advanced and can confirm this newspaper.