After Quique Setièn on Monday, Eric Abidal also bears the brunt of the stinging 2-8 defeat against Bayern Munich. More in the odor of sanctity with the players since his clash with Lionel Messi a few months ago, the Frenchman will have had a limited impact in Catalonia.
“FC Barcelona and Eric Abidal have reached an agreement to terminate the contract between them. The club wishes to publicly thank Eric Abidal for his professionalism, his commitment, his dedication (…)”, indicated the Catalan club in a statement.
Barça player from 2007 to 2013, Eric Abidal, 40, became sporting director in June 2018. He was sacked a few days after the rout against Bayern Munich (8-2) on Friday in the quarterfinals of the Champions League, the heaviest defeat in Barça history, on the European stage.
Under fire from criticism since January, Abidal has failed to give substance to the Catalan sports project. He was the second after Quique Setién to pay the price for the catastrophic season of FC Barcelona, the first without any title won since 2007.
Abidal was notably singled out for his management of the dismissal of former coach Ernesto Valverde, replaced by Quique Setién on January 13.
With other leaders, Abidal had visited Xavi, coach of Al-Sadd in Qatar, to offer him the place of Valverde, still in office at that date, but the ex-legend of Barça had refused.
A case that continued the French until his dismissal: on February 6, the superstar Lionel Messi had come out of his usual silence, and had published a message on Instagram to urge his sports director to “assume his decisions” and to “give names “, after the latter had blamed the players for the dismissal of Valverde in an interview.
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