Laporta: "We paid the market price"

 
Joan Laporta believes that FC Barcelona paid the going rate for Daniel Alves while Txiki Begiristain expressed his delight that the player turned down higher offers to sign for the club.
Speaking first, the Blaugrana technical secretary explained that "there had been a great effort" on the part of the player to join Barça and that he had rejected larger bids from other clubs for his services. "Sevilla understood that the will of the player and reached an agreement lower than other clubs had offered to let him sign," he explained.

"The best full-back in the world"

The official price of the transfer stands at €29m up front, with €6m more to pay depending on a number of performance-related factors over the next few seasons. In this sense, Laporta explained that "we have paid the market price for the best full-back in the world".

Separate transfers

Begiristain then explained that Alves' arrival had nothing to do with Deco's €10m departure to Chelsea. Each transfer is different," he said. "All the major clubs around the world wanted to sign him," he continued, reflecting on the demand for Alves. Reflecting on Deco's move, however, he said: "We did not receive any other offer, apart from the one from Chelsea. His performances for us were extraordinary, particularly in his first two seasons here."

Praise for Deco

Deco also earned praise from Laporta, after he helped the club to win two league titles and the Champions League. "We believe that he had nothing more to prove here and that it was best if he looked for new challenges," the president said. "We did not want to cause any problems for him at this stage of his career."

Eto’o and Ronaldinho

On the possible exits of Samuel Eto'o and Ronaldinho that have been reported, Begiristain stated that "there is no news" and added that "we are waiting for concrete offers from other clubs so that we can negotiate. I understand that this is difficult because there are not many clubs in the world willing to pay these amounts".