Former French player Eric Abidal has been fired from his post as FC Barcelona’s sporting director, the Catalan club announced in a statement on Tuesday, a day after sacking coach Quique Setién.
“FC Barcelona and Eric Abidal have reached an agreement to end the contract between them. The club wishes to publicly thank Eric Abidal for his professionalism, his commitment, his dedication (…) ”, the Catalan club indicated in a press release.
This decision comes three days after the terrible debacle of FC Barcelona 8-2 against Bayern Munich in the quarter-final of the Champions League on Friday in Lisbon, and the day after Setién’s dismissal as Barça coach.
“This is the first decision taken regarding the large restructuring of Barça’s first team, which will be done in agreement with the current technical direction and the new coach, who will be unveiled in the coming days,” said Monday. evening the Catalan club, foreseeing “profound changes”.
“Decisions will be announced and explained in the coming days, some of which were already recorded before, even before the resumption of the Champions League,” warned FC Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu in the wake, Friday evening after the terrible defeat against Bayern Munich.
Former French international left-back (67 caps) and ex-player of FC Barcelona (2007-2013), Eric Abidal was appointed sports director of the Blaugrana club two years ago, on June 7, 2018, in place of Roberto Fernandez.
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.
With AFP
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