From a distance, a voice comes from a radio: "What do you think, should Piqué leave Barça?" Gerard Piqué looks thoughtfully over Barcelona from a penthouse.

“Culers, for weeks, months, people have been talking about me.

Now I want to tell you about myself.” Below are pictures of little Gerard with the ball, as a youth player and during his great successes at Barça.

Then: "This Saturday I'll be playing at the Camp Nou for the last time." As suddenly as the announcement of the end of Gerard Piqué's career comes: the video is well thought out.

The 35-year-old has been a problem in Barcelona since the start of the season: his contract runs until 2024, but he is often ailing.

Even if he is healthy, Piqué has to sit on the bench.

And when he does come up, he's blamed for the team's poor play.

All that is now a thing of the past.

Now Piqué is just a club legend, world and European champion, four-time Champions League winner, eight-time Spanish champion, to name just a few of his 37 total titles.

World champion coach Vicente del Bosque said on radio station Cadena Ser that Piqué had formed the best central defense in the world with Puyol.

But: "He recently had a sad face, it wasn't him.

He wasn't happy." What used to be the cause of serious polemics is now easily forgotten: his support for a Catalan right to self-determination (not to be equated with independence, as he emphasized) or the justification for Catalan supporters whistling for the Spanish in the cup final national anthem.

Footballer – and successful entrepreneur

Piqué's decision coincides with the passage of a new sports law in the Spanish Parliament.

According to this law, athletes are not allowed to have business relationships with federations of those sports in which they are active themselves.

Gerard Piqué has been a successful entrepreneur for years.

He brought Barça together with Japanese internet retailer Rakuten in 2015, who became the club's main sponsor.

Piqué's company Kosmos holds the TV rights to the French league and organizes the Davis Cup in tennis.

But above all: He brokered the contract between the Spanish Football Association and Saudi Arabia, according to which the Spanish Supercup will be held in Saudi Arabia.

The association receives 40 million euros per season for this, but according to Spanish media reports, Kosmos should also earn 24 million euros.

And where businessman Piqué and the president of the Spanish Football Association, Luis Rubiales, get along so well, the athlete Piqué also spoke up: "You have to make that possible for me.

I'm really keen to play in the Olympic Games.” He meant the games in Tokyo, which he ultimately didn't take part in.

The Spanish Internet portal El Confidencial had published the telephone recording.

With his career retiring in two weeks at Barça's away game in Pamplona, ​​Piqué is also stepping out of this line of fire.

Now he can devote himself entirely to his professional career as a businessman.

And make his announcement come true in the farewell video.

There he says: "You know me.

I'll be back sooner or later."