As the half-time whistle blew at Barcelona’s La Liga clash with Rayo Vallecano on Sunday, the chants started: “Xavi si, Laporta no,”. Everything was very clear: the cules – who are required to vote on the club’s president at every election cycle – aren’t so convinced with the man at the helm.
And they have a point. It’s been a chaotic week in Catalunya, as rumours spread that Laporta wants to sack manager Xavi, just weeks after begging the disgruntled boss to remain at the club past this summer.
That news has reopened some old wounds that had seemingly been sewn shut after a discombobulated campaign. The president pulled an ultimate act of reconciliation in April in getting Xavi to stay, but in igniting talk that he now wants rid of him, Laporta has only further damaged the reputation of Europe’s most poorly run elite club.
The footballing world hardly needed any more proof, but the setup at Barca is an absolute mess – and it could yet get worse before it gets better.
U-turn after U-turn
This was all supposed to have reached a point of stability. Xavi announced his intent to leave the club in January, following a battering at the hands of Villarreal, and although his announcement was unexpected, it made sense at the time. His team had gone stale, and whether it due to poor tactics, bad luck, or both, Barca had failed to reach the heights that saw them win their first league title in four years in April 2023.
Xavi was perhaps too big, and too important to be sacked outright. He knew that if he went, it had to be under his own impetus. Leaving a football club – especially one in such a state – is hardly an act of valour, but Xavi knew it was broken, and there had to be a new face at the helm to sort it out.
In the weeks that followed, he repeatedly attacked the media for their treatment of him, and suggested that the toxic environment around the club was having a negative impact on his mental health. Perhaps most worryingly, when asked if he would give any advice to the next Blaugrana boss, the manager publicly urged club legend and current Barca Atletic boss Rafa Marquez to not take the job.
Minds can be changed, however, and at the end of April, Laporta summoned Xavi and the Barca board for dinner. Over sushi, the parties agreed that the manager should stay on following an encouraging run of results both domestically and in Europe, even if the season was to end without any silverware. The pair, along with sporting director Deco, held a press conference and posed for photographs as a show of the solidarity that ran through the club.
On Wednesday, May 15, however, things changed. When asked to offer a message of support to the fans, Xavi opted instead to talk about the club’s crippling finances. “The Barcelona fans need to understand we are in a difficult situation, especially on the economic side,” he said in a press conference. “Our financial situation is not the same as 20 years ago, when the club manager could say, ‘I want to sign this player, this player and this player’, and we got them all. The fans have to realise we need to adjust to this. I am doing it and we will do it together as a club. That does not mean we won’t compete. We will try our best.”
Laporta, in return, didn’t travel with the team to their game against Almeria the following evening, and talk soon emerged that he was considering a U-turn of his own.
Ruining the good vibes
Regardless of Xavi’s legendary status at the club, the fact that he may now be sacked has caused huge frustration because this Barca team were finally starting to become fun again. They may have only spent the past weeks fighting for second place in La Liga, but there were signs that the decent form shown in early 2024 was now progressing towards something like entertainment.
Gone was the stale box midfield that had been figured out by opponents, and back came a fun 4-3-3 formation. Lamine Yamal was at the centre of it all, as he wore down defenders on the right-hand side, while Raphinha looked a player reborn on the opposite side. Robert Lewandowski has started scoring goals again, and without pressure to play Pedri and Ronald Araujo, Xavi has offered more minutes to La Masia graduates Pau Cubarsi and Fermin Lopez. Results haven’t been perfect, but there have certainly been green shoots emerging as the season draws to its close.
Xavi, meanwhile, looked at peace. No longer shackled by uncertainty over his future, he stopped snapping at officials and was markedly more measured in press conferences. Barca’s problems hadn’t gone away, but there was suddenly a reason for optimism.
Chaos never far away
But with Laporta at the helm – and Deco by his side – anything is possible. The president might have been Xavi’s biggest supporter at times, but he has hardly been the laissez-faire leader the club might need. He has constantly interfered with the manager’s power during his tenure, undercutting Xavi both publicly and behind closed doors.
The most flagrant episode, perhaps, was in December 2023. Barca had already qualified for the knockout stages of the Champions League, so Xavi picked a weakened squad for the trip to Royal Antwerp in a dead-rubber contest. Araujo, Lewandowski, Frenkie de Jong and Ilkay Gundogan – all likely starters in a game of any importance – were all set to be left at home. But at the last second, Laporta overruled his coach, and Araujo, Lewandowski and Gundogan travelled with the team on the president’s demands. Barca, regardless, lost 3-2.
Deco, too, has played his part in the soap opera. Last summer, Xavi was desperate for a central midfielder to replace the departing Sergio Busquets. He coveted Real Sociedad’s Martin Zubimendi, but would have taken quality from anywhere at the position. Instead, Deco turned his eyes to South America, spending big to bring in the exciting – but raw – forward Vitor Roque, blowing the Blaugrana’s transfer budget on a player they didn’t really need, meaning they had to turn to cut-price veteran Oriol Romeu to step into Busquets’ shoes. The former Southampton man was clearly not at the level required and has barely started a game in 2024, while Roque has struggled to see the field since the completion of his move in January.
Fan discontent
It has all further complicated the club’s relationship with its fans. Supporters were eager to see Xavi leave at first, and readily booed the club legend when results went against them towards the end of 2023. But they changed their tune through early 2024, and even encouraged the manager to stay before he officially elected to.
Since then, the fervour has only become more intense. Xav seems to have the unwavering support of the Blaugrana faithful, which has drawn a wedge between the coach and Laporta, one that Xavi was forced to speak out on. He did so on Sunday evening, condemning the anti-Laporta chants, and insisting that the club had to be unified.
“I feel appreciation from the fans, but I didn’t like the chants against the president,” he said. “We have to be united. Three weeks ago, we spoke about being united and taking this project forward and that is still the case.”
It marks a difficult moment for the president, who ran for the position on the platform of being a lifelong ‘cule’ and has so often talked about delivering a watchable product for the fans. Suddenly, the figure who pulled enough levers to bring glory back to Catalunya has been cast aside.
Bartomeu’s legacy upheld
Still, it’s hard to totally blame Laporta for the state Barca find themselves in. He is rightly criticised for his brash attitude and overzealous, often flagrant pro-Barca propaganda machine, but he was dealt one of the worst hands in elite football history when replacing outgoing president Josep Bartimeu, who left the club in a state of disrepair in 2020 by almost bankrupting the institution.
Bartomeu was later arrested for allegedly paying for an illegal online smear campaign that promoted social media posts that glorified his image while launching tirades against Lionel Messi, Gerard Pique and Xavi. The former president was cleared of the charges, but his damage to the club remained.
Laporta, when he took over at the end of 2020, walked into a broken club. On-field success was starting to prove elusive, while horrible financial mismanagement meant that Laporta’s first real act as president was the forced loss of Messi – Barca’s financial problems meaning the great Argentine had to begin a markedly unhappy Parisian vacation.
To his credit, Laporta steadied the ship in some ways. He got rid of some overpaid players, brought in some good ones, and won a league title. But the manner in which he has gone about it has the potential to further damage the club down the line.
Financial stability has remained elusive, as Laporta’s freewheeling, lever-pulling tactics of 2022 failed to drag the Blaugrana out of monetary doom, while his handling of the press, tumultuous relationship with the manager, and erratic bursts of anger have hardly seen the club painted in a more forgiving light. If Barca’s reputation was already damaged, Laporta has done little to revive it.
Chance of reconciliation?
So, Barca find themselves again making headlines for the wrong reasons. Xavi, who it felt like was being begged to reverse his decision to leave less than a month ago, could now be forced out regardless. His comments on the club’s finances might have been ill-thought, but Laporta surely has a thick enough skin to understand where the coach was coming from? And even if he doesn’t, what about the optics of sacking a manager you did so much to convince to stay just a few weeks earlier?
That’s not to mention where it would leave Barca. Suddenly, they would need to pay out the final year of Xavi’s contract, while the Blaugrana’s finances are so poor that they likely couldn’t afford the signing-on fee or salary of an elite coach – if there is even one out there who would be willing to take the job. Marquez, a potentially solid internal replacement, has meanwhile been urged by Xavi himself not to take the job.
Laporta would be wise, then, to be the bigger man and stick with Xavi. Unfortunately for Barca fans, the president has not been known to make the wisest decision all that often in his tenure thus far.
The club of Johan Cruyff, Pep Guardiola and Messi is now unrecognisable; an embarrassment, more ‘mes que una comedia’ than ‘mes que un club’. And if Xavi is sacked, who knows how long this Catalan chaos will continue for?
