FC Barcelona has seen many talented players depart over the years due to several different reasons. Some of these players arrive from the youth academy itself, while others are top players acquired from elsewhere. Ultimately, Barcelona has to retain and let go of players all the time due to different reasonings.
In recent years, the financial troubles of the club have been a massive reason as to why La Blaugrana has sold some key players. Ilkay Gundogan’s recent departure, for instance, was one that was backed up by such reasonings and it ended his stay at Barcelona in a very unjust way.
However, there are some departures that simply do not make sense for either sporting or financial reasons. One of those was that of Marc Guiu, a former Barcelona Atletic striker who made a name for himself within the first team for his heroic debut against Athletic Club, a game in which he scored the winning goal.
Yet, despite his growing standing within the team, the player decided to move to Premier League side Chelsea this summer from Barcelona. This was a permanent deal with a €6 million price transfer fee paid by Chelsea as it was the player’s existing release clause in his contract.
However, as revealed by SPORT, Barcelona director Deco revealed the reality behind the 18-year-old striker’s departure this summer in a recent interview and decided to be completely open about it:
“Chelsea paid his release clause, and he left. He had an old contract with a six million euro clause. We offered him an important contract and a significant project, but he decided to go a different route.”
He also made sure to emphasize again on the fact that the young striker was indeed offered a new contract but the player decided to decline that opportunity and moved to Chelsea in hopes of a new adventure:
“… But we weren’t successful. The player chose an offer from Chelsea. We offered him the chance to be a striker for Barça, but he didn’t want it.”
Ultimately, Marc Guiu is now in the past and no longer belongs or is affiliated to the Catalan club. He could have potentially had an opportunity to fight for a place as a starter once Robert Lewandowski left, but it seems that he wanted to try his luck over in England instead.