BARCELONA PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE Josep Maria Bartomeu has revealed Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s agent told him the forward wanted to punch Pep Guardiola.
The Swedish striker spent an infamously ill-fated season at Camp Nou in 2009-10, where his relationship with the head coach soured to an unworkable point, leading to his exit to AC Milan the following campaign.
Mino Raiola, the agent of the current Paris Saint-Germain star, is also the man in charge of Juventus midfielder Paul Pogba’s fate as clubs gather to try to lure him away for a large sum of money this summer.
Speaking ahead of July 18′s Barca presidential elections, Bartomeu went into detail about his intriguing anecdotal experience with Raiola five years ago.
“I know agent Mino Raiola very well having negotiated with him before,” he told reporters on Monday. “I dealt with him over Zlatan Ibrahimovic in 2010, for instance.
“I had many meetings with Mino. In one, he told me: ‘Ibra will punch Pep one of these days’.
“Mino is a very friendly and very funny guy but one must look at his pocket. He makes a living ridiculously well. He is a specialist at players changing teams.”
‘A specific midfielder’
Bartomeu claims that voting him in as Barca’s chief will guarantee a brand new midfielder, though he refused to note whether that would be Pogba.
“The board was asked to secure a specific midfielder,” he continued. “Now we have convinced him to join us, though I cannot reveal his name yet.
Bartomeu – who was in charge at Camp Nou from January 2014 until the end of 2014-15 when the presidential election race began – also dismissed Joan Laporta’s critical comments regarding the interim board’s activities.
“I’ve resigned, but the club continues to work on what was agreed on in April,” he added. “We cannot allow the stop to remain paralysed and static because rivals with take advantage.
“The sale of Gerard Deulofeu to Everton was criticised the other day. For god sake, it was a pre-agreed sale!”
