Former Barcelona midfielder Matheus Fernandes is ready to sue the club after terminating his contract last week.
Barcelona are tasked with making drastic cuts to their salary budgets to let them write about Lionel Messi, and one of the first deaths was Matheus, who had his contract ripped off less than 12 months after joining the club.
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The club has claimed that they had the right to terminate Matheus’ contract if they thought he was not performing at a sufficiently high level. RAC1 notes Barcelona pointed to his poor form during the season, his lack of minutes compared to other midfielders and his performance in training, where he was below average in six of nine key categories.
Barcelona dumped all of this on Matheus in an email and told him that the remaining four years of his contract had been torn up. Charming.
However, the story is not over yet, as Cadena SER says the 23-year-old is ready to contest his resignation and will take Barcelona to court over what he sees as an unfair dismissal.
Matheus, who only played 17 minutes for Barcelona, is expected to argue that he never got a fair chance to show his value to the club and claimed he was set on failure by those in charge at Camp Nou.
That attitude reflects an interview Matheus recently gave with Mundo Deportivo, in which he accused boss Ronald Koeman of having a personal problem with him.
Matheus admitted: “One day I went to Koeman’s office and said, ‘Why haven’t I played any more? Did I play badly? He said to me: “No, you played well, but I can not put you on because I do not count on you do not have the quality to play for Barça.
“I told him that if he does not put me on he can not see if I do not have the quality. If the club signed me it was because of my quality. There must be something else. I always thought it was a personal thing because he did not talk to me, he did what he did, for me it is personal.
Fernandes presented only once / SERGEI SUPINSKY / Getty Images
“It has been a bit difficult for me because I came with an expectation to play, to grow as a football player and as a person, but a strange thing happened to me, who does not play, does not have opportunities and is always out.
“I trained in positions that were not mine, played as a right-back or in defense. In some training I was not even involved.
“There were days when I did not train. I stayed out and scored, shots on goal. I just warmed up, scored some goals, but I was not with the whole group. The days before the matches, which were more tactical, I barely trained with the group. “
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