It’s time to find out the real reason behind Ronaldo Nazario’s departure from FC Barcelona as per his former agent tells the story.
Ronaldo Nazario left FC Barcelona during the summer of 1997 and his former agent has all the details. During that season, he performed some of his best football in the only year he played for the Blaugrana. There is no other player who can compare to him from that era, but the Catalan club suddenly sold him to Inter Milan.
We have a lot of different information about the whole process and how his exit played out. But today we have the details and the truth of how Barcelona allowed the best player in the world to slip through their fingers. His former agent, Giovanni Branchini spoke publicly about the whole situation and how it all took place.
This is how things unfolded.
“There were several days of negotiations with the Barcelona lawyer and their vice president [Joan] Gaspart,” said Branchini in a Sky Sport documentary. “The difference that they underestimated was the clause, which was decisive. One night we ‘kidnapped’ Ronaldo from the hotel in Barcelona and we went to my partner Carlo Pallavicino’s house. We had a meeting where if Barcelona had presented us with a clean contract, we would have signed it. If not, what do we do? There was a small dossier with teams like Lazio, Inter, and Rangers.
“We had nothing against the renewal with Barcelona, but we did not want image [rights] contracts and complicated situations. If you want a TV channel to pay part of the contract, that’s fine, as long as you pay us taxes. We did not want to go down a path that would endanger the future of the most important player in the world. He had to get into fights that did not concern him.”
The final call.
“We shook hands with the Barcelona coaches, I asked permission to make a phone call and I called [then-Inter president Massimo] Moratti telling him that we have reached an agreement with Barcelona,” added Branchini. “There was a press conference where Barcelona announced the agreement, but unfortunately the things that we had said did not correspond [to what they said].
“At the beginning I thought it was a misunderstanding, then lost my temper. I looked at the partners and said, ‘Gentlemen, we are leaving. Given this insult to our intelligence there is no reason to expose Ronaldo to this humiliation’.”
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