One day after Nikola Mirotic claimed that Barcelona didn't inform him of their decision to part ways, the basketball section's manager Juan Carlos Navarro said he was surprised to hear the player's statements.
The imminent departure of Nikola Mirotic from FC Barcelona keeps making stories, especially after the Montenegrin superstar forward claimed that the club made the decision to part ways unilaterally in an interview with Jose Ignacio Huguet from Mundo Deportivo.
Asked whether the club gave him any kind of explanation for the decision, the player told that Barca provided none.
"First, I would've liked it to have been transmitted to me in a different way, at another time, with other people [involved], perhaps [from someone] higher up [in the organization]. My agent has already sat down with them and asked. If it's an economic issue, let's talk, let's sit down and see if we can do something about it," he argued.
Juan Carlos Navarro is the first FC Barcelona representative to make a public appearance and assess the Mirotic case since the player made those controversial statements. The manager of the basketball section pointed out that the club will provide explanations after the end of the ACB finals and appeared confident that Mirotic will help his team win the title against Real Madrid.
"First of all, I was surprised by Nikola's statements yesterday, when we had no idea that he was going to talk about it," the former Barca legend admitted.
"Second, we are in the [Spanish] finals, for which we have worked a lot and he has also made a good playoff run. Hopefully, he'll be with the team to try to help us with these finals. And then we will explain everything, the whole situation, how everything has gone, all the 'timings', because, as you already know, it is a decision that we have made and that he has known for a long time.
However, it will be discussed when everything is over", Navarro told Barca TV.
His statements come one day after Mirotic confirmed that the club had informed him that it will terminate his contract when the season ends and assured, contrary to rumors in recent weeks, that Barca never reached out to him about a possible salary reduction.
The Montenegrin forward also added that he wants to bid farewell to Barcelona fans because "these are my last games."
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