Barcelona head coach Xavi has confirmed he is suing two journalists and insisted he “will not tolerate the lying”.
Javier Miguel and Manuel Jabois — the former being a freelance journalist and the latter working for Spanish newspaper El Pais and appears on the Cadena Ser radio station — have both had lawsuits filed against them by the Barcelona legend.
“It has never happened to me before,” Xavi, 44, said on Friday of his decision to take the lawsuit.
“I understand the criticism and where I am, but only to a certain extent. What I will not tolerate is the lying and the situation of making things up.
“I think it’s time to say enough is enough. These are very big lies.”
Xavi has filed a lawsuit against Miguel — who appears in multiple Spanish media outlets — for alleging that he was involved in disrespectful behaviour by coercing his staff to place their cell phones on the table to identify potential information leaks, which the Barcelona coach firmly denies.
Xavi has subsequently pursued legal action against the journalist, with Spanish media reporting that the Barcelona boss has provided him with a deadline to correct his articles.
Spanish media also report that El Pais journalist Jabois is being sued over comments made on Cadena Ser’s radio show El Larguero, in which he claimed Xavi had sent him “some private messages” that were not complimentary.
Jabois claimed: “It (the sender of the messages) was Xavi, but I’m not going to tell you because it was in private. It was through messages and it was a pretty dirty thing and he didn’t say it in public and that’s it.”
Jabois addressed the comments in a subsequent column for El Pais, clarifying that Xavi had never called him in person but had instead complained about the comments through mutual friends.
Xavi was not satisfied with the explanation and denies the allegations, insisting that the comments were libellous and that he does not know Jabois personally.
The comments from Jabois came in the aftermath of Xavi asking “who is laughing now?” following Barcelona’s progression to the quarter-final stage of the Champions League after defeating Napoli.
That comment was in relation to Barcelona being labelled “the buffoons (joke) of the Champions League” by Jabois’ El Pais colleague Ramon Besa, who had been critical of the club’s performance in the competition over recent seasons.
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