The agent of Dutch coach Ronald Koeman accused Barcelona president Joan Laporta of "hypocrisy", after Laporta claimed that the two men were "friends".
In a documentary shown in the Netherlands under the name "Forsa Koeman", the Dutch coach and his agent, Rob Jansen, revealed what happened last June inside the corridors of the "Camp Nou".
Janssen stated that Koeman's stay in Barcelona this summer was not settled after the team was satisfied with finishing the local league last season third, revealing that Laporta told him and his client that he "needs time to search for a coach, and if he does not find, Ronald can stay."
"We've always had a good relationship, and then the president came and said to me, 'I still have doubts, we need more time and we will look for other options regarding the coach,'" Koeman said in the documentary.
We cannot explain anything else."
Koeman arrived in Barcelona's technical management in August 2020, succeeding Spaniard Kiki Sittin, but he was satisfied with one title, which was in the local cup competition, while he lost the league battle by falling behind the poles of the capital, Atletico and Real Madrid, respectively, and he came out of the Champions League final price on The hand of Paris Saint-Germain.
Jansen stated that "Laporta said that he needed two or three weeks to find a new candidate for the position of coach, and if he did not succeed in this, Ronald would continue his duties."
"It was a crazy decision (to look for an alternative), not based on anything; just based on feelings, it's crazy (...) I didn't speak to Laporta after that, but fortunately the people around him were able to contribute to Koeman's survival."
Jansen continued his attack on Laporta, "and then the president came out at a press conference to say that they would continue to work together, they are friends (...) This is hypocrisy at the highest levels of sport."
Koeman - who was pressured at the beginning of the new season after the departure of Argentine star Lionel Messi to Saint Germain and the painful loss at the beginning of the Champions League campaign against Bayern Munich with three clean goals in the "Camp Nou" - was more diplomatic than Janssen, considering that "the president is the president." He is there to make decisions."
And he continued, "I told him: Let me know if you think I'm not good enough to coach the team, and then we can finish the story."