Joan Laporta speaks on Javier Saviola's exit.


A reaction to the much touted exit of Javier Saviola has been made by FC Barcelona's President, Joan Laporta. Prior to his exit, the youthful Argentine striker had expressed total discontent about his stay in Barcelona especially the latter years toward the ending, when Javier felt he wasn't being given enough playing time and was not in the good books of the Blaugrana.
Laporta responds:

The impression Saviola is creating is wrong. Through out his stay in Barcelona, we have been very nice to him and treated him exceptionally well. He was given great contracts all through his years here and we still wanted him. This we displayed by offering him another contract so as to have him with us, but he rejected it. If we were to really assess Saviola's stay at Barcelona, we would say it had been unproductive for the club in terms of winning titles and trophies, yet we wanted him to stay on.

Saviola joined FC Barcelona in 2001 and went on loan to AS Monaco in 2004/05 season and to Sevilla in 2005/06, during which Barca lifted trophies including La Liga and the UEFA Champions League trophies. saviola returned last season and was unable to lift Barca to championship glories.

Javier Saviola is joining FC Barcelona's rivals, Real Madrid on a free transfer.