‘Unpleasant’—Barcelona President Fires Parting Shots at Rebellious Player

Things have threatened to turn nasty as Paris Saint-Germain swoop in.

Joan Laporta is not impressed with Dro Fernández. | Manuel Queimadelos/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images

Barcelona president Joan Laporta lamented the “unpleasant situation” surrounding Dro Fernández’s decision to push for a move to Paris Saint-Germain in a bitter review of the situation.

Fernández has gone from darling to demon in rapid time. Having caught the eye of Hansi Flick during the summer preseason tour, the teenager was soon inspiring public rebukes from the German coach, who was forced to uphold Marcus Rashford as the shining beacon of the desire a player should possess to represent Barcelona.

The Spain U-18 international only turned 18 in January, ensuring that he was still on an academy contract when the winter window opened at the turn of the year. As Laporta would reveal, Barcelona had intended to agree new terms with Fernández which would have presumably come with a hefty increase in his release clause.

However, the €6 million ($7.1 million) trigger remained in tact once it became clear that the youngster was keen to move onto pastures new. A tally of five senior appearances over the first five months of the season—including a start in the Champions League—had not satisfied his appetite for game time.

Paris Saint-Germain raced ahead of their Premier League and Bundesliga counterparts to secure an agreement with the teenager, whose Barcelona defection has not gone down well with the powerbrokers in Catalonia.

“He’s announced he won’t be continuing. It’s an unpleasant situation,” Laporta told Catalunya Ràdio this weekend. “We’ll be able to rectify the situation as it was initially presented. It was a surprise. We had agreed on another solution for Dro when he turned 18, and surprisingly, his agent told us we couldn’t honor our agreement.

“We’ll try to make it work out in the best possible way for Barça’s interests.”

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Dro Fernández Out to Change Unwanted Precedent

A young Xavi Simons left Barcelona for PSG in search of success he didn’t find. | FRANCK FIFE/AFP/Getty Images

The appeal of PSG is obvious. Not only are they the reigning European champions, but they boast a coach in the form of Luis Enrique who has an appreciation of young, particularly Catalan talent from his days in charge of Barcelona.

Quite how many minutes Fernández will be afforded while competing with the likes of Khvicha Kvaratskhelia, Désiré Doué and Bradley Barcola remains to be seen. But past precedent suggests that leaving Barcelona for PSG is a risky call.

Four Barcelona academy graduates have followed the path taken by Fernández in the 21st century and only one has ostensibly enjoyed any sustained success in the Spanish capital. While goalkeeper Arnau Tenas never made it as a first-choice, the examples of Xavi Simons and Kays Ruiz-Atil serve as close parables.

Both diminutive playmakers left Barcelona in their teens to go to PSG in search of bigger and brighter things. Neither would find them in the city of lights. Simons only made 11 senior appearances for the French outfit, impressing during various loan spells before moving onto RB Leipzig who promptly sold him to Tottenham Hotspur over the summer.

Ruiz-Atil was not so fortunate. The Lyon-born Morocco youth international spent half a decade on the books at PSG before returning to Barcelona in 2021. He was released after a year back in Catalonia and currently finds himself skulking around Belgium’s second tier at the age of 23.

The one figure of any moderate hope comes in the unlikely form of Mikel Arteta. The current Arsenal manager never made a senior appearance for Barcelona, but thrived during an 18-month loan spell in France at the turn of the century. This was a time before the current “bling-bling” era of modern PSG, yet Arteta still thrived off the close proximity of playing with a young Ronaldinho, eventually earning a move to Rangers where his love affair with British football would begin.

Player	Year Joined PSG	PSG Appearances
Arnau Ternas	2023	8
Xavi Simons	2019	11
Kays Ruiz-Atil	2015	7
Mikel Arteta	2001	53

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