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The newspaper "El Mundo Deportivo" reports that "Barcelona" has ended all ties with the Tashkent football club "Bunyodkor" and will not play the friendly match planned earlier in Uzbekistan.
It is said that the Catalan club rejected a commercially attractive 5 million euro offer for such a match.
During Joan Laporta's term in 2008, "Barcelona" established friendly relations with the team then known as "Kuruvchi." Several "Barcelona" players and J. Laporta himself traveled to Uzbekistan. Rumors circulated that the wealthy local officials who controlled "Kuruvchi" even had their sights set on Samuel Eto'o.
Soon after, the Tashkent team changed its name to "Bunyodkor" and began using elements of the official "Barcelona" colors in their new logo, as well as some motifs from the Catalan club's logo.
Both teams agreed to play friendly matches, and in the summer, the Uzbekistan team players were given the right to train at Camp Nou stadium.
When Sandro Rosell became president, he did not hide his dissatisfaction with such friendship and in the early days of his first term, he stated that he would do everything to terminate the agreement with "Bunyodkor."
According to "El Mundo Deportivo," the new leaders of the Catalan club were dissatisfied with the Tashkent team's approach to sporting principles and their style of communication. There were suspicions that the Uzbekistan team was supported by an authoritarian regime in the country. In addition, Uzbekistan is named by the United Nations Organization as a country without democratically elected government and a country where human rights are violated and freedom of speech is restricted.
The newspaper publication states that these are just a few reasons why the current leadership of "Barcelona" skeptically viewed the cooperation agreement with "Bunyodkor."
According to sources at "Barcelona," the activities and attitudes of the Uzbekistan team towards such cooperation are incompatible with the values proclaimed and cherished by the Catalan club - transparency, fairness, democratic and equality-based club management, and more.
"Barcelona" has decided to reject the 5 million euro compensation that would have been received from "Bunyodkor" for the friendly matches played in Tashkent.
