By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
File Photo.
Barcelona president Joan Laporta says he is in contact with Xavi but would not comment on whether he will replace Ronald Koeman as manager.
Koeman was sacked after defeat to Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday and Laporta has admitted he should have gone sooner.
Former Barca midfielder Xavi, 41, is in charge of Qatari club Al Sadd,but is favourite to replace Koeman.
“I have always said one day [Xavi] will be Barca’s head coach but I don’t know when,” said Laporta.
He added: “We have great references about Xavi at Al Sadd. All our reports about Xavi are positive. We can talk a lot about Xavi, but I cannot give you more details. He is in all the papers, but we also have other options.”
Speaking at a press conference on Friday, Laporta was asked whether he waited too long to make a decision on Dutchman Koeman’s future.
“Probably, yes,” he said. “Looking back it is easy to analyse, we felt Koeman deserved confidence to recover some injured players and it was a way to motivate the manager.
“I looked for some positives. Probably we had to make an earlier decision, I assume the responsibilities of this decision.”
“The situation was not sustainable. We needed to act. We were not on course to achieve the objectives of the season, which is to win titles.”
Serji Barjuan, who played 382 times for Barca in the 1990s and early 2000s, is happy to hold the fort.
“My objective is to win and have this team winning their games,” he said. “We are going to try and reverse the situation and I am going to try and add my grain of salt to change the dynamics of this team and the situation.
“If we see that things are going well then good, but if we need to take different decisions then we will do that.”