Barcelona President: ‘Sorry for Ronaldo to Juve’
Real Madrid? We look in our home. We aim to win everything and we have strengthened the team: fewer players but more quality and space for the young players from La Masia. Of the 22 of the first bracket 10 is La Masia. And we are trying to give space to Alena, Puig, Miranda, and Ruiz. Last year we won the Youth League. You cannot expect to grow more people like Xavi, Iniesta and so on. And the presence of these same players closed the doors to those who came from the bottom. The level is very high: even 4 years ago we won the Youth League and from those guys in the first team there is only Munir. And if the talent's not there or the player is too young then we have to disregard. Who will win the Champions league? There is a balance. Apart from Ronaldo, no one has done sensational shots, nobody wanted to sell their best players: management looked at it from a sporting perspective more than the economic."
"Surprised by the transfer of Ronaldo from Madrid to Juventus? Andrea Agnelli has made a coup. I’m sorry that La Liga lost a star, the second in two years after Neymar. It is negative for the movement, I'm not interested in the fact that Madrid may have weakened, we just want to play the best football. The only way you can compete with the Premier League, the richest. Ronaldo not only improves Juve, but he also improves the whole Serie A. In the key of Champions then I agree with Messi and Ronaldo with Juve is even more of a candidate for the title."
"The League wants us to play in Miami? To us it seems a great idea. The game with Girona, for me, is only a football match, a match in la Liga. There should be no political concern. The match behind closed doors with Las Palmas? The most difficult decision. Things happened in Catalonia which we didn’t agree with. People have the right to vote, the repression was very hard. And for us as Barca, it was difficult to choose. The members today support our political line. That day my daughter said to me: 'Dad, we don't want to play'. We took two unpopular decisions – play, and behind closed doors, which I thought was the best for Barça. If I had thought of myself it would have been easy to say: 'What do they all want, not to play? Well, we don't play'. We didn’t play for the points, we played to prove that we don’t surrender. We know that politics is part of this club and all sports. The difficult thing is to try not to root for. We are in favor of democracy, freedom of expression, the ideas shared by the majority of the Catalans. We are against the imprisonment of the politicians. It is true that the political situation now is radicalized, but we live with great tranquility. No matter what happens Barca will play in La Liga. Tebas knows and all our members know, I have always said. We will continue to play in La Liga".