FC Barcelona and Xavi? Is there a Future?

Towards January 2024, Xavi made a heartbreaking announcement that shook all the fans with Barcelona tickets. He officially announced that he was leaving the club and wanted a break amidst the mental and physical strain. 

A few weeks later, it felt like Barcelona President Joan Laporta had convinced Xavi of it, as he showed no intent after that. 

The Champions League quarterfinal and Barcelona restarting their winning streak kept everyone in high spirits, including the fans with Barcelona tickets. 

Fast-forward to the end of the season, and as Barcelona finishes second in the La Liga, there is again debate. 

Chaos in Barca Administration 

Barcelona is once again debating Xavi Hernández’s future, sources told ESPN. Less than a month ago, President Joan Laporta and the coach himself announced at a news conference that the Catalan would continue for at least another season.

The official version from Barcelona is that nothing has changed, but sources told ESPN “do not rule out” Xavi’s dismissal and insist that Laporta has never trusted the coach.

Another source said there is an internal dispute at the club over Xavi’s continuity because, while some voices favor him staying on, Laporta has been under pressure for weeks from within his board and outside the club to part ways with the coach.

Xavi’s camp is trying to play down the tension and ask for “calm.” Still, sources inside the club have said they have not received any information from the board about his possible departure, despite speculation beginning before the league closed for the season.

Sources close to Laporta and Xavi are not surprised by this new development because they see the president as someone who leads the club from the “emotional” side.

On this occasion, the trigger that precipitated Laporta’s new doubts about Xavi’s continuity was the news conference before the Almeria game in which the Catalan coach referred to the financial difficulties hindering Barça’s attempts to win trophies.

Sources said he is weighing whether Xavi should continue in the post, with several internal and external influences pushing for the coach to be fired.

Xavi, 44, announced in January his plans to step down at the end of the season, but he reversed that decision last month despite Barça’s Champions League exit and defeat to Real Madrid in LaLiga, which left the Blaugrana on the verge of a trophy-less campaign.

That decision came after a meeting with Laporta at his house in Barcelona. Still, sources claim Xavi’s discourse on Wednesday differed from the optimism he had displayed to the president that April evening.

“We are going to try to compete,” Xavi said this week. “The situation is difficult financially. It has nothing to do with what happened 25 years ago when the coach said, ‘I like this player, this one, and this one.’

“It doesn’t work like that anymore. The supporters need to understand the situation. As the coach, I know what’s happening, and that’s how we will manage things.

“Right now, we are not in the same conditions as other clubs with better [financial] fair play; that’s the reality. The fans should know. But this doesn’t mean we won’t try to achieve our goals.”

Those comments upset Laporta, who then did not travel to Almería. Barça won 2-0 to move four points clear of third-place Girona—who beat them 4-2 last week—and take a massive step toward finishing second in La Liga and securing their place in next season’s Spanish Supercopa.

“Nothing has been said to me personally [by the club],” Xavi told reporters after the Almería win. “The relationship has not changed. The vice president traveled, as did other directors.

“I just said what I think, what’s real, that we are going to fight for everything, but the situation is not easy, and we are all working together to turn the situation around. Our reality does not change.

“I am looking forward to preseason, planning it with Deco. There is excitement, and it’s an honor to be at the best club in the world, with the ambition to win trophies.

“I just said that the financial situation is not the best, but we are all working hard to turn it around and strengthen for next season. Nothing has changed, although I understand there is always a stir here.”

Xavi announced earlier this year that he would step down in the summer after a 5-3 defeat to Villarreal, explaining that his departure was in the club’s best interests.

However, following an upturn in results, and despite defeats to Paris Saint-Germain and Madrid in April, he reversed that decision, although sources at the time classified it as an “uneasy truce.”

Barça had leaned toward Xavi staying in the role given their problems in finding a successor, in part because of the lack of options on the market and also because of the club’s financial difficulties, which made appointing an in-work coach impossible, and selling the project to other potential candidates hard.

Xavi, meanwhile, agreed to stay on because he is a “club man,” but a source close to the coaching staff told the press at the time that the feeling was “bittersweet” because they felt “weakened” and that they would be in the firing line at the first bump in the road.

That has proved so this week, with Xavi’s comments angering the club and creating doubts about who will be the coach of Barcelona next season.

Xavi, who made over 700 appearances for the club as a player, replaced Ronald Koeman in 2021 and steered Barça to a second-place finish in his first term in charge before winning the La Liga title and the Supercopa last season.

Barça has failed to build on that success this season, although they have progressed to the Champions League quarterfinals for the first time since 2020 and will end the campaign without a trophy.

Last year, despite not having European glory, Barcelona were La Liga winners, and it felt like the club had turned a corner. 

Unfortunately for the fans with Barcelona tickets, the club’s success has not continued through to 2024, as it struggled in the opening weeks of the league. 

This inconsistency of form has prevented Barcelona from reaching its top amidst the club’s financial crisis. 

The future of Xavi is still undecided.