FC Barcelona Have Many ‘False Fathers’ Trying To Claim Ownership Of Pedri Signing

The Camp Nou has a new idol in Pedri.

Now adding goals to his repertoire, the 19-year-old Golden Boy guaranteed second place in La Liga for the Catalans with a stunning winner 20 minutes from time against Sevilla on Sunday.

The Blaugrana faithful had long chanted the Tenerife native’s name as they had with all-time great Lionel Messi’s, but have now thrown in the Wayne’s World-esque “We’re not worthy” back and forth palms-to-the-floor adulation also reserved for the seven-time Ballon d’Or winner.

“I’m not the leader, we’re all the leaders,” Pedri insisted post-match.

“The way we run, I think things are working out… I think we’ve improved in many things in football, we press better, we’re more calm with the ball and the signings in attack provide a lot of gunpowder,” he added, while stating that the fans chanting his name is “crazy”.

While most of the rest of the world waxes lyrical about Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland, Spain’s new number ’10’ is quietly mounting his own case to be considered the successor to Messi and generational rival Cristiano Ronaldo and a future owner of the sport’s highest individual accolade.

Time will tell who pulls out in front, but until then, it has been noted that there are many ‘false fathers’ trying to claim ownership of having been responsible for bringing Pedri to the La Liga giants.

As SPORT note, “when a signing goes wrong, many try to evade responsibility, but when it succeeds in such a colossal way as with Pedri, people end up appearing from all sides assuring their share of authorship even if their participation is minimal and inconsequential”.

This is happening now with Pedri, who cost a meager $5.5mn from Las Palmas in 2019. But though his legacy is tarnished by the club-record $186mn capture, disgraced former president Josep Bartomeu does reserve a smidgin of respect for greenlighting the coup for the prodigy.

While Bartomeu merely had to sign off on the deal, however, others were there from the get go and got the ball moving. Tomas Alcaide first scouted him at a tournament in Marbella, and then alerted former technical secretary Ramon Planes to the then-16-year-old.

Planes and sporting director Franc Carbo then worked with the Las Palmas president and Pedri’s agent to get the deal over the line, and the rest is history after the playmaker officially signed in 2019 but made his way to the first team squad the following year when Ronald Koeman took a punt on him.

Nobody else, including club legend Jose Bakero, who only saw Pedri once when he was in charge of grassroots football at Barca, was actively involved in the signing.

As Pedri continues to mold into the icon he is fast becoming, however, expect many other ‘false fathers’ to emerge claiming paternity to his signature.