Gerard Piqué calls journalist defending Barça president a 'puppet' | OneFootball

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OneFootball

Dan Burke·19 February 2020

Gerard Piqué calls journalist defending Barça president a 'puppet'

Article image:Gerard Piqué calls journalist defending Barça president a 'puppet'

Gerard Piqué appears to have stoked the fire of Barcelona’s behind the scenes unrest by hitting back at a journalist on Twitter.

All has not been well at Camp Nou since Lionel Messi recently slammed Eric Abidal on Instagram after the sporting director appeared to accuse the club’s players of not trying hard enough for former coach Ernesto Valverde.


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Then, an explosive story from Cadena SER earlier this week claimed the club had hired a company called I3 Ventures to create disparaging social media posts about Messi, Piqué, former players and possible presidential candidates.

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Speaking on Tuesday, club president Josep Maria Bartomeu categorically denied the story but did admit they had hired a service at the end of 2017 to monitor the club’s reputation in different areas of social media.

Later in the day, Barcelona-based journalist Marçal Lorente tweeted in support of the club’s board …

“For many years I have known the Barça environment and the idiosyncrasy of the supporters and fortunately, the club is becoming less manipulable and more intelligent and knows how to perfectly identify who wants to reach Barça to use it for their media, political and economic interests,” wrote Lorente.

But in response to that tweet, Piqué made it pretty clear that he doesn’t buy either Bartomeu’s denial or Lorente’s defence whatsoever …

“Titella” wrote the 33-year-old, which means “Puppet” in Catalan.

This comes after the Twitter account La portera de Núñez had reported earlier on Tuesday that Piqué had seemed angry when he arrived at the club’s training centre.

This story is far from over, and it seems Barcelona could have a genuine crisis of their own making on their hands.