Deco confirms Barcelona never sought out Nico Williams’ signing

Barcelona sporting director Deco has early this week revealed that he never actively sought out the signing of Athletic Club star Nico Williams.

The name of wide-man Nico of course dominated the headlines in Catalunya’s capital once more earlier this summer.

As much came after widespread confirmation was forthcoming that Barcelona had reactivated their efforts to bring the 22-year-old in from Athletic.

Just when it appeared as though the transfer was a sure thing, however, Nico, out of the blue, pulled the plug on the operation.

The attacker, instead, made the call to put pen to paper on a lucrative long-term contract extension in Bilbao.

The move’s failure sparked widespread chatter across the Spanish football landscape, as fans, pundits and the media alike talked through every detail of the saga at length.

As alluded to above, though, on Monday, one key piece of information missing from many of these debates was reiterated by the aforementioned Deco.

Speaking during an interview with Mundo Deportivo, Barca’s transfer chief confirmed that Nico ‘wasn’t the profile’ of player the Blaugrana were actually seeking, with talks having only been started due to the fact that the Spanish international offered up his services through his agent:

”There’s no change. When we were dealing with Luis Díaz, we saw it as very difficult. With Rashford, United only wanted a sale, and we were looking for solutions. Nico wasn’t the exact profile we wanted, but he can play on the left and the right. And Ferran was becoming a ‘9’, and you take him out of the equation on the wings. If you bring in Nico, you have a right and a left wing, but not so much the ‘9’ profile. If a great player like Nico asks us to come, when the agent looks for us, we’ll talk, and that’s how it’s been. Football is like that; the player, for whatever reason, didn’t want the conditions that were proposed. The agent has his interests, and we don’t know how things are going, but there’s no controversy. It’s a very easy matter. He gives you a right and a left wing, he doesn’t give you the ‘9’ aspect, but if you don’t have the other solutions, it would suit us because he’s a great player and could give you two of the three positions.”

Conor Laird – GSFN