Piqué: "I'm not disappointed with Neymar"
The Barça defender does not feel betrayed by the Brazilian
“How many of you would move to the competition for more money?”, Piqué asked journalists
Gerard Piqué, the Barcelona defender, said this Saturday that he did not feel betrayed or disappointed by Neymar’s transfer to PSG, adding that fans should be grateful to Neymar for his performances while at the club.
“He hasn’t disappointed me, there are several ways to leave, some go on strike and Ney fought for the shirt to the last second,” Piqué insisted.
He added that he wouldn’t judge Neymar for his decision, saying “We live in a world where people are sad and like to criticise a lot. Social media is the biggest example – the whole world expresses anger and sadness, the best example is how they criticise Ney, his dad and his friends. Here, everyone is judging them but if they have a salary or a commission it’s for something. Because they do something and the club accepts it,” he claimed.
MOVING TO THE COMPETITION
Piqué also asked the journalists “how many of you would move to a competitor for more money? But if a footballer does it he’s a mercenary”.
THERE’S NO NEY SUBSTITUTE
Piqué added that Barça should not look for a replacement for Neymar. “He’s a unique player, with a special talent, one on one he’s the best in the world. It will be difficult to find a replacement, rather than look for someone like him we have to make ourselves stronger, be a stronger and more competitive team. We can’ look for Ney’s replacement because he’s not available on the market”.
The Barça centre back is not shocked by the figures involved in the Neymar transfer. “When Madrid signed Figo for €60 million, they had a budget of €200 million. It’s more or less than same proportion. The money is football is getting like that, we’ll see signings for €300 or €400 million soon and 50 years ago people were paying €1,000”.
When asked if any club would pay Messi’s release fee, Piqué was confident that Barça would be able to retain the player, “Maybe it’s not all to do with money, maybe you can keep players with other things”.
Questioned about the tweet during Barcelona’s US tour, Pique claimed that it was simply his intuition that the Brazilian would remain in Catalonia, but now he has changed his story once again.
“I don’t feel like I’ve been tricked,” he told reporters in the pre-Supercopa press conference on Saturday evening.
“Now that everything has taken place I can explain how it all went down."At [Lionel] Messi’s wedding, Neymar already had this idea that he would leave [Barcelona].
"The day that I posted the ‘se queda’ ['he stays’, in English] tweet, I already knew that he was 100 percent leaving, but it was my final shot.”
He was annoyed at me. “I’m sure he had his reasons.”
“In the end, we cannot judge him as he has taken a brave decision.“
“He performed really well for us and has now left money in the bank, while we remember him fondly.”
Speaking about those 222 million euros brought in by Neymar’s sale, Pique had his say on how difficult it could be to spend it. “It is a tough time to sign and everyone wants to take advantage of the fact that we have 222m euros to spend,” he said.“The club must think well about what it does. This team can guarantee [success], but new players can still be signed and it will be better because of the competition.”
