Barcelona President Sandro Rosell says he does not understand Pep Guardiola’s outburst at him, and urges the club to unite in respect of the former Coach.
Guardiola, now with Bayern Munich, last week hit out at the Catalans for ‘not leaving him alone’ during his year away from the game and for ‘using Tito Vilanova’s illness’ to hurt him.
“We have been very surprised by his statements and we are not happy with everything that has happened,” responded Rosell in an interview on 8 al Dia this week.
“What he said about the board and about Tito’s disease is completely false. It is not true. You can check that as an institution, we have treated him right.
“These statements have created a noise that is not good for the club, but we take it as a passing interest, a small mark that must not mask the great history that Pep has written, for which we consider him the best Coach in the history of the club.
“We must learn from our past, when the club was divided into ‘Cruyffistas’ and ‘non-Cruyffistas’. Let there not be ‘Guadiolistas’ and ‘non-Guardiolistas’, we are all ‘Guadiolistas’. The history of the club deserves this and Pep does too. We must all go in one direction, where what matters is a club and its members.
“I do not know what Pep meant. The thing I know is that from the day of his departure from the Camp Nou, there was a tribute at the level that he deserves, and until today, the only connection I have had with him was to congratulate him on the day he was chosen as Coach of Bayern.
“Pep must be a living legend of Barcelona. I want everyone at the club to be ‘Guadiolistas’ because that is what they should be and we have to recognise and thank him for the work he has done.
“When you make a statement like that, it must be provable and demonstrated, because it is not true. No member of the board nor I have used Tito’s disease of anyone else to do anything, because the disease is sufficiently severe.
“I would like that ‘Guardiolismo’ would unite Barca’s fans because the work done in his time here was extraordinary. It lasted five years and in football it is hard to beat a three-year cycle.
“I would vote for Guardiola as President, his final spell here should be as President. Unless someone close to me ran for the role, like my sister, I would vote for him.”
