Quique Setien claims Barcelona owe him money
Former Barcelona boss Quique Setien has astonishingly revealed that the Catalan giants owe him money, just over two years after axing him from his job.
Now the man of the moment at Villarreal, Setien provided further insight on Barcelona’s financial shortcomings. He stated that the club, who spent over €150 million this summer on the likes of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde, have yet to pay the dues they owe to him.
Setien was sacked a few days after one of the darkest days in Barcelona history, when they were taken to the cleaners by Bayern Munich in an 8-2 drubbing. His time only lasted 25 matches, with the team never managing to gel and put together a run of morale-boosting results.
As of now, the club is struggling both on and off the pitch. They had to trigger financial levers and offload other assets in order to register players, and as recently as the concluded match day of the Champions League, they were sent to the Europa League by Bayern.
Setien, now about to take charge of his first game for seventh-placed Villarreal, was not surprised by Barcelona’s current economic turmoil.
He noted “Barcelona have lived a great cycle and now they have to go through a period of hardship to get back on their feet again. I’m not surprised by Barcelona’s situation because I expected it.”
The 64-year-old added “Barcelona have not yet paid the dues to me, I told them and gave them the full time, but they preferred to sign a child from Racing like Pablo (Torre) and strengthen their team.”
As for Barcelona, they continue to baffle everyone across Europe with their transfer activity and player registrations.
Xavi and co. are just one point off table toppers Real Madrid in La Liga, having claimed four wins from their last five matches. Setien will meet his old employers as Villarreal manager on February 12, 2023.
-Roy Akarshak
Twitter: @RoyAkarshak
Photo: Giovanni Batista Rodriguez. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.