{"id":60597,"date":"2026-07-25T11:22:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:22:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/60597\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T11:22:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T11:22:10","slug":"xavi-simons-breaks-silence-on-barcelona-exit-stories-came-out-that-hurt-me-they-didnt-believe-in-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/60597\/","title":{"rendered":"Xavi Simons breaks silence on Barcelona exit: ‘Stories came out that hurt me, they didn’t believe in me’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former Barcelona academy midfielder Xavi Simons has spoken publicly about his controversial departure from the club in 2019, insisting that his decision to join PSG was driven by a lack of faith from Barcelona rather than financial reasons.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the media ahead of his second season with Tottenham Hotspur, the Dutch international revealed that the club made it clear he was not part of their long-term plans.<\/p>\n

Simons: \u2018Barcelona did not believe in me\u2019<\/p>\n

Simons, who spent almost a decade in La Masia and was regarded as one of Barcelona\u2019s brightest academy prospects, explained why he chose to leave for PSG at the age of 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was clear from the beginning that they did not believe in me. At the time I decided not to speak because I was focused only on the pitch,\u201d he said, as quoted by SPORT<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey told me: \u2018We have other players that we believe in, we want to offer you a contract, but you are not one of the players who is really part of the project.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BarcelonaAn eight-year-old Xavi Simons at La Masia. (Photo by Jasper Juinen\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

His departure generated significant debate, with many believing that financial considerations had been the deciding factor.<\/p>\n

Simons admitted that the criticism surrounding his exit affected both him and his family, as he said:<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, the decision was clear. At that time people did not know what had really happened behind all of this; they only had an opinion based on what they had heard, because stories came out saying that I was leaving for money.\u201d <\/p>\n

Continuing, he added: \u201cDid that hurt me? Of course. I had been there my whole life, I went through different situations, I experienced everything there, my entire childhood was spent at that club. <\/p>\n

\u201cI love Barcelona and that version of events hurt me and it also hurt my family, because it was not true.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"XaviXavi Simons joined PSG from Barcelona. (Photo by Fran Santiago\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Easy decision<\/p>\n

Simons reiterated that Barcelona\u2019s preference for other academy players made his decision straightforward.<\/p>\n

According to him, PSG offered him the opportunity that the Blaugrana did not.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reality was simple: at that moment they preferred other boys. And that was fine for me, because I had PSG, with a really big project, already training at the age of 16 alongside the best players in the world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was no need to think about it too much: the decision was easy. Barcelona did not believe in me and, for me, the decision was clear.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since leaving the club, Simons has been linked with a return to Barcelona on multiple occasions, including last summer<\/a>, but the move never materialised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Barcelona academy midfielder Xavi Simons has spoken publicly about his controversial departure from the club in 2019,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[92,222,223,7843],"class_list":["post-60597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-barcelona","tag-barcelona-news","tag-fc-barcelona","tag-xavi-simons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}