Barça: Deco speaks his truth on the Nico Williams saga

Nico Williams

In his update on the summer transfer window, Barça sporting director Deco revisited the Nico Williams case. Deco lays out his truths.

In a lengthy interview with Mundo Deportivo, Deco looked back at last summer’s failed transfer of Nico Williams. According to him, Nico offered himself to the Catalan club, and Athletic Bilbao didn’t exactly handle the situation impeccably either.

"There was no mistake, we simply set the club’s conditions, then had to move on to negotiations on paper, to contracts. We told them we wouldn’t accept the terms they were imposing, because no player is going to dictate the rules to us. In the end, nothing happened. We gave them a deadline to respond, they didn’t reply, they went their way and we went ours. (...) It’s not about registration guarantees. If you want to negotiate, tell me exactly what you need and want, and don’t change your mind afterwards. That’s all. I won’t talk about this issue anymore, we’ve already spoken too much about it and Bilbao have said too much nonsense," the Barça executive explained.

🚨 Barça director Deco: “We never chased Nico Williams. It was his agent who approached us multiple times, not us going after him”.

“Athletic Club should ask his agent. He wasn’t even exactly the profile we were looking for… you just have to listen”, told @mundodeportivo. pic.twitter.com/5ESXQg4YPw

— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) September 29, 2025

He then delivered his candid thoughts: "I don’t think Bilbao are any kind of example to follow in this area. We didn’t try to sign their player; we weren’t the ones making the move. They should be more concerned about the agent who came to Barça multiple times to offer us this player. If one of our players allows his agent to talk to other teams, we can’t blame the other clubs for that. It’s a very simple situation: the agent approached us, tried to sell us the player, it didn’t work out, and we moved on."