Barcelona advised Nico to change agent, but the result was counterproductive

Let's look at the most dramatic deal in the transfer market this summer, perhaps Nico Williams' failure to transfer to Barcelona. The deal seemed to be a foregone conclusion, but it suddenly reversed at the last moment, and the players chose to renew their contract with Athletic Bilbao. What happened behind this can well illustrate the complexity of modern football transfer negotiations. The thing happened was that Barcelona chased Nico for the second consecutive year and made great progress at one point. Club chairman Laporta approved the deal, and sports director Deco also held several talks with the player's agent Felix Tanta. At that time, Tanta had one of the offers from Barcelona, and the other was a contract renewal provided by Athletic Bilbao with better conditions.

Just when the negotiations were stalemate, Barcelona made a very risky move, which became the turning point of the entire incident. It is said that after the player had undergone a physical examination in a Barcelona hospital, a senior club executive was dissatisfied with the position of his agent Tanta, so he bypassed him and contacted Nico directly through the communication software, suggesting that he change his agent and go to Mendes or Zahavi, who has a better relationship with the club, to operate the transfer.

This suggestion completely angered the Williams family. We know that the agent Tanta is very famous in the Basque country, he has a very close relationship with the Williams family, and Nico's brother Inaghi is also his client. Barcelona's attempt to bypass and replace player agents is a great disrespect in their opinion. We see that Barcelona under Laporta is indeed more inclined to cooperate with super agents close to Mendes and Zahavi, but this strategy is completely unworkable for the Williams family.

The result was that the negotiations immediately broke down. That night, Nico and his family finalized all the details of the contract renewal with Athletic Bilbao and recorded the official announcement video. The next morning, the news of the contract renewal was announced. So, a seemingly about to be completed transfer, because of an irrational move, ended up failing in such a dramatic way.