04/07/2025
📋 The full details of the Nico situation:
▪️ The player was never among the club’s options.
▪️ His agent contacted Barça and offered the player, then traveled to meet with the club.
▪️ During the meeting, the agent told Barça that Nico had become a more mature player this time and that leaving Bilbao could be done under easier conditions for Barça (such as payment in installments).
▪️ But once news of the meeting leaked, Bilbao made their position clear: they would not negotiate under any circumstances with Barça.
▪️ Barça reached a financial agreement with the player and prepared the funds to trigger the release clause, but time started slipping away while the agent introduced new and complex conditions that slowed the deal.
▪️ Among those conditions was that if he was not registered before August 20, the player would become a free agent.
▪️ Barça considered these conditions unacceptable and began to realize that the deal might collapse.
▪️ The player’s agent remained silent until last Wednesday, when he contacted Barça to inform them that a meeting would be held between the player and his inner circle to make a final decision about his future.
▪️ Today, Barça officially learned of Nico’s decision, a decision they had suspected for days, even if it still came as a surprise.
▪️ Despite the image the agent tried to present of a mature player, the prevailing feeling in the club is that Nico says one thing while with the national team and does the opposite when he returns to Bilbao.
▪️ They also believe that the agent’s strong ties with Athletic Bilbao played a decisive role in frustrating a deal that Barça was ready to complete.
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