Xavi Hernandez has refused FC Barcelona’s offer to become first team head coach.
The saga began on Friday, when following Thursday evening’s 2-3 Spanish Super Cup semi final defeat to Atletico Madrid in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, director of football Eric Abidal and chief executive Oscar Grau flew to Doha.
There, they met not just the injured Ousmane Dembélé, who is undergoing treamtent in the Qatari capital, but also the legendary midfielder to discuss him replacing the tipped-to-be-ousted Ernesto Valverde.
This claim was originally made by radio station RAC1, and later, Madrid-based newspaper AS reported that an offer to occupy the Camp Nou hotseat for two-and-a-half-years had been made to the Blaugrana’s all-time appearances leader.
Prior to another semi-final clash in the Middle East that pitted Xavi’s employers Al-Sadd against Al-Rayyan in the Qatar Cup on Saturday, the former’s sporting director, Muhammad Ghulam Al Balushi, confirmed on local TV station AlKass that talks had taken place.
‘There are negotiations between Xavi and Barcelona [going on] now and we wish him well wherever he wants to go,’ Al Balushi remarked.
After Al-Sadd came out 4-1 on top, Xavi commented on the matter in public for the first time at his post-match press conference by saying that ‘I can’t hide my dream of training Barcelona one day, and I would like to train Barça, but now my focus is on Al-Sadd. I can’t talk about what happens at Barcelona because I respect the club and Valverde’.
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