In a film and unexpected turn of the events, when page had almost passed in Bilbao of the ‘Nico’ case because … He made his march to Barcelona or, if the Barca club did not get the Financial Fair Play, to another team, with Bayern as the best positioned, the red and white international stamped his signature in Ibaigane in a contract that unites Athletic until 2035. The clause he has accepted is also much higher than the one he now had of 58 million euros. It has increased by more than 50%, according to the club, which places the armor around 90 million.
The uncertainty for an unharmed inscription, his desire to stay in Spanish football, the fact of being able to dispute the Champions with Athletic, the substantial improvement of his file – now he charged about the four million euros – and family and sports ties – his brother Iñaki will premiere the next campaign as the first captain – have been the determining factors in the decision of the Navarrese end. The Margarita has defoliated when she already had a foot and a half in the Barça de Hansi Flick, the most interested in her signing, convinced that the Catalans needed a knife in the left wing so that Raphinha recovered her most focused position.
It is true that in recent days he had entered a strange ‘impasse’ within the framework of a hypothetical operation with the Blaugrana entity that was almost finished, but no one imagined a change of script so abrupt to just a few days after the beginning of the preseason. Barcelona leaders had not liked Félix Tal, the representative of Nico, to raise the possibility that in an eventual contract a clause that allowed the player to reverse if he was not registered in the League.
This demand had tensioned the relations enters both parties and in parallel Athletic, oblivious to the media roar in Catalonia, moved in silence to convince the player that at any destination he was going to be better than in Bilbao. The doubts for an inscription that was only a promise, on the one hand, and the stability offered by the rojiblanca entity, on the other, have been the suitable springs so that the little one of the Williams has chosen to stay in the Biscay capital and progress and develop their brilliant career from here. «When decisions have to be made, for me what weighs more is the heart. I am where I want to be, with mine, this is my house. Aúpa Athletic! ”Says Nico Williams in the video in which the club announced its renewal.
There were certain similarities between what has happened at this beginning of summer and in the previous one, when the rojiblanco was also about to set up to the city after completing an extraordinary Eurocup. But there is an element that changes everything and that a priori – it is important to clarify that we are talking about football and soccer players – the commitment of the Pamplone with the rojiblanca entity during the next decade. And it is that unlike the last year, when Nico renewed until 2027 with a 58 million clause – the previous one was 50 – and therefore left the door open to look for new horizons if an attractive opportunity was presented, this time the armor is around 90 million, an amount that, this time, is clearly deterrent. And it is already known that Athletic does not negotiate. Or the clause or nothing.
There have been weeks of a soap opera for unbearable moments in which, regardless of some comment on their vacation on social networks, the end has kept absolute mutism while in the Biscay capital there was no talk of anything else and even several heartless people dedicated themselves to erase their face from the already popular mural of Lutxana, which has now served Nico to stage his renewal. The rojiblanco had probe its possibilities in the market and through its representative he communicated in his day to Barça that he wanted to dress in Barça since next year. Subsequently, he transmitted his intention to leave to Athletic. From there he has remained in the background while his agent negotiated with Deco, sports director of Barcelona who publicly confirmed the interest of Can Barça to have him in his ranks.
Everything seemed to run on a highway until, suddenly, the operation felt because what seemed like a free road was actually a highway with a high toll on the thorny issue of registration. The verbal agreement for which Nico would be Barcelona player until 2031 and would charge between 7 and 8 million per course he had taken the wind.
Two simultaneous fronts
Athletic opened two simultaneous fronts to try to turn a very delicate situation. In public, he revealed a meeting of Jon Uriarte with the president of the League, Javier Tebas, in which he confirmed his intention to look with magnifying glass all the economic movements of Joan Laporta and his collaborators, especially those linked to the fulfillment of the Financial Fair Play. It was a more symbolic defensive maneuver than practice because a double -layer confidentiality weighs on club accounts, but the rojiblanca entity made Barça clear that it was not going to put the red carpet. In private, and in parallel, the rectors of Ibaigane appealed to the feeling of belonging and offered Nico an improvement of their contractual conditions to think twice. Seen with perspective, there was something of it in the firmness with which the club defended him when his face in the mural was first vandalized: “missing respect for one of ours is to disrespect Athletic.”
The Board of Directors has managed to retain one of its struts after the Ernesto Valverde team signed an almost immaculate season that led him to finish fourth in the league, which has opened the doors of the Champions League, and to be planted in the semifinals of the Europa League. Nico’s renewal, without a doubt the sporting bombing of the summer, joins the extensions of the contracts of Unai Simón, Sancet, Vivián, Jauregizar, Prados and the Viandar de la Vera technician. It is also expected that the template will be reinforced in the next few days. Robert Navarro has already been signed and the club works in the Operation Return of Laporte and in the hiring of Jesús Areso.
In Barcelona, meanwhile, no one has given their face. Laporta’s ridiculous and his advisors has been capital. The president dwarfs himself with the passing of his mandate and only the upstarts trust him. As has been demonstrated in the frustrated ‘Nico’ few, few believe in their word. His promises are wet paper.
