Barcelona sack Eric Abidal after UCL humiliation

Barcelona have terminated the contract of Eric Abidal, the club’s sporting director, barely 24 hours after the sacking of Quique Setien, their head coach.

Abidal was sacked on Tuesday in the wake of Friday’s humiliating 8-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in the UEFA Champions League (UCL) quarter-finals.

The 40-year-old former Barcelona defender, who has two UCL and La Liga’s titles under his belts during his six years spell with the club, has been removed from the role he held since June 2018.

“The Club would publicly like to thank Éric Abidal for his professionalism, commitment, dedication and the close and positive nature of his relationship with all aspects of the blaugrana family,” the club said in a statement.

“FC Barcelona and Éric Abidal have reached an agreement for the ending of the contract that united the two parties.

“The Club would publicly like to thank Éric Abidal for his professionalism, commitment, dedication and the close and positive nature of his relationship with all aspects of the blaugrana family.”

The former France left back’s decision to sack manager Ernesto Valverde will be seen as a major factor in his own departure.

Valverde was sacked in January despite the club sitting top of La Liga.

The decision to relieve Valverde of his duties did not go down well with Lionel Messi and tensions between the two further heightened when Abidal was critical of the Barcelona squad thereafter.

In February, the Argentine star claimed that Abidal had been singling out players for blame amid the sacking of Valverde.

“When you talk about players, you have to give names because if not, it gives air to things which are not true,” he had written on Instagram.

“I don’t know what happened to make him say that but I responded because I felt attacked. I felt he was attacking the players.

“Too much is said about the dressing room, that we force coaching changes or bring in players, and especially about me – like I have a lot of power and make the decisions. The same happened to me in the Argentine national team.

“It bothered me coming from someone from the club… to put the players in the middle of the dismissal of the coach seemed crazy.

“(Abidal) is the one who makes the decisions and has to take charge.”