Laporta: “Frenkie de Jong will travel to the United States”
Using a public discourse very different from the club’s internal strategy, Barça’s president said: “We are not not obliged to sell”. Mateu Alemany added that De Jong “is a very important player”.
There appear to be two different messages coming from Barça concerning Frenkie de Jong. On Friday the club insisted that it is counting on the player for the new season. But privately, they view the Dutch midfielder’s situation differently - on Thursday, it emerged that the club had ordered the player to leave. However, president Joan Laporta made it clear today that De Jong will be going on the US tour with the squad. During his speech about new signing Raphinha, Laporta said, “This a player who I think is going to make history and it’s nice to be able to speak Brazilian again. It is not true that we are obliged to sell Frenkie de Jong. Xavi is the one who decides and I understand that the player will be travelling to the United States”.
Shortly afterwards, Director of Sport Mateu Alemany also had words to say about De Jong. “He is a very important player for us and we are counting on him. Ther’s nothing more to say. What is clear is that the Fair Play system requires that some players must move on. From a sporting point of view, they are the coach’s decisions. There are certain players who have known about their situation for two months and, in agreement with them, the logical thing is that they remain here until their future is sorted out. Hopefully, that will happen soon”.
The other star player who was mentioned during Raphinha’s presentation was Robert Lewandowski: “He is a Bayern player and I will not comment on that subject because it would be wrong to do so. We have nothing to say,” Alemany explained.