One of the most controversial operations of the current mandate of Joan Laporta is undoubtedly that of Vitor Roque. The 19-year-old Brazilian forward signed with Barcelona in the summer of 2023 from Athletico Paranaense in exchange for 30 million euros plus 31 in variables, however, incorporated into the first team in the winter taking advantage of the long-term injury duration of Gavi, he has been seen playing for a while, relegated by Xavi Hernández, who has preferred to give minutes to other players. As this newspaper has been able to confirm, Vitor Roque had previously been offered to Barça, specifically in January 2023, but the then leaders of the sports leadership, Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff, rejected him.
Vitor Roque’s promoters at that meeting were André Cury, his representative, and Deco, at that time a kind of advisor in Brazil for Barça without any remuneration or contract because his profession was to represent players, a task incompatible with the of sports director that he would later exercise.
The meeting took place on January 24, 2023 in a hotel in the city of Barcelona. At the time, Cury was detached from FC Barcelona after having been employed by it between 2012 and 2020, during which he worked as the main scout in Brazil and received around 680,000 per month for this concept. Rosell was the one who incorporated him into the executive staff and Bartomeu who dispensed with his services with one year left to finish his contract, after having had him on the payroll for six seasons. With Laporta, Cury had carried out several operations during his first term, some of which were very controversial (Keirrison and Henrique to begin with), but not since he was re-elected president. Deco, for his part, had explicitly supported Laporta during the 2021 election campaign, but was not part of the club, he was simply an ally or consultant in the Brazilian market. Therefore, it was natural to grant him an audience before a possible call or proposal.
Cury and Deco sat on one side of the table and Mateu Alemany and Jordi Cruyff, then director of football and sports director of Barça, respectively, listened to them from the other. The Brazilian sector spoke enthusiastically about Vitor Roque, but circumstances prevented the possibility from being studied. Barça was busy matching the numbers in relation to LaLiga’s requests to stop exaggerating in financial fair play and Xavi and Jordi Cruyff’s priorities were now to dedicate the money that could be invested in a defensive midfielder against the safe departure of Busquets. In fact, on dates close to that meeting, Endrick was also offered to Barça, but was rejected for the same reasons as Roque and would end up signing for Real Madrid. Deco always insisted that Vitor Roque was better than Endrick, but his football skills were not discussed in depth because the club could not undertake signings that carried risk and were therefore implantable.
Months later, Jordi Cruyff left the technical secretariat and Deco, in June, settled in Barcelona as de facto technical director in the absence of an official confirmation that arrived in mid-August, the date on which he announced that he agreed to stop acting as a representative to avoid incompatibilities. Weeks before he was the one who led the signing of Vitor Roque. Alemany, for his part, was responsible for closing the market against LaLiga, but without the confidence of the president.
This newspaper has contacted Deco to confirm the appointment at the hotel held in January 2023 in Barcelona next to Cury. He assures that he does not remember it completely, but he does recognize that every January he came to Barcelona with his family to go skiing and then he was always available to Laporta, to whom he had given his support in the campaign, for informing him of players to be on the lookout for. Not only does Deco remain convinced of the quality of Vitor Roque, but he confesses to being surprised by, he understands, the campaign to discredit such a young player by the Catalan media, in which he claims to see bad faith and malice.
Recently, André Cury has assured that he wants Vitor Roque to leave the club through a transfer, instead of a transfer.
