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Former Barcelona midfielder and head coach Xavi Hernandez has been banned from representing the club’s “Legends” team. Xavi, who has been a Catalan by blood, spent most of his career at Barca before returning as a coach in 2021. He featured in the last two charity games for Barcelona Legends in Miami and Seoul. However, as per recent reports from the Spanish media, Xavi will no longer be invited to feature in such exhibition matches due to his opposition to Barcelona President Joan Laporta. The club may lift the ban later, but nothing is certain.
Why has Xavi been excluded from Barcelona Legends roster?
Xavi Hernadez, who managed Barcelona for three years, dropped some bombshell, controversial comments involving Laporta in an interview with Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia. The club hierarchy seems not to have taken his comments lightly. Alejandro Echevarria, who picks the team of Legends matches, is a close associate of Laporta and is his brother-in-law as well. “Echevarria has more power than Laporta at the club,” Xavi reportedly said in the interview.
Xavi accused Laporta of blocking Lionel Messi’s return to Barcelona
While speaking about the club’s internal structure, Xavi claimed that Lionel Messi, who left Barcelona in 2021, was almost set to return two years later after winning the World Cup with Barcelona, but Laporta had blocked the move.
“The president isn’t telling the truth there either. Leo was signed. In January 2023, after winning the World Cup, we got in touch, and he told me he was keen to come back,” Xavi said.
“The president started negotiating the contract with Leo’s father, and we had La Liga’s approval, but it was the president who threw everything off,” he added. Xavi’s comments came weeks before Laporta would battle Victor Font in the March election. For the unversed, Xavi was removed from the managerial role before the end of the 2023-24 season.
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