The sporting director of FC Barcelona, Deco, spoke in a lengthy interview with the newspaper "Mundo Deportivo," where he discussed the details of the offer the club received for signing Niko Williams, the visit of his agent to the club's headquarters, and then the failure of negotiations between the two parties.

Deco said in his talk: "When we were discussing the signing of Luis Diaz, we saw that the deal was complicated, and with Rashford, Manchester United only wanted to sell and we were looking for solutions. Niko Williams is not exactly the type of player we wanted, but he can play on both the right and left sides. Ferran was turning into a number (9), which took him out of the wing considerations."

He added: "If a great player like Niko comes and offers to join us through his agent, it is natural for us to talk to him, and that’s what happened, but in the end, the player – for whatever reason – did not accept the terms offered, and the agent has his own interests, and we don’t know exactly what happened, but there is no crisis. The matter is simple. Niko gives you the option to play on the wings, not as a number (9), but if there are no other solutions, that would be beneficial because he is a great player and gives you two options out of three in attack."

He continued: "We simply set our terms, then what is agreed upon must be put on paper and contracts, and we said that we would not accept the terms that were presented to us, because we will not allow any player to impose his terms on us. In the end, nothing happened. We set a deadline for a response, they did not respond during it, so they went their way and we went ours."

He clarified: "Were the guarantees regarding his registration in La Liga unattainable? The problem was not a matter of registration guarantees; it’s simpler than that. When you enter into negotiations, tell me from the beginning everything you need and everything you want, and do not change that later. That is the crux of the matter. And I will not talk more about this topic; it has been discussed a lot, and a lot of nonsense has also come out from Bilbao."

Regarding Athletic Bilbao going to La Liga to find out about Barcelona's financial situation: "I don’t want to get into matters that are not my domain; I deal with players and the daily management of the club. But I think Bilbao is not an example in this regard. We did not go after their player, nor did we search for him. They should worry about the agent who came to Barcelona several times to offer the player to us."

He continued: "The matter does not concern us. But if one of our players gives his agent permission to talk to other clubs, we cannot be angry with those clubs. Niko is a player at Bilbao, and this is a simple matter: his agent is the one who contacted us and offered the player; the deal did not succeed, and we have to move on and focus on more important matters."

He concluded regarding whether Williams changed his terms to join them: "I will not get into that, otherwise I will have to talk about negotiations that succeed and those that fail, and I don’t like that. I have a relationship with agents, and I shouldn’t disclose its details publicly. It is natural for each party to work in the interest of their player, and I will not delve into the details. What should be clear is that we did not seek Niko; rather, his agent is the one who offered the player to us, and since the negotiations for Luis Diaz and Rashford were complicated, we were looking for solutions. But the Niko deal did not happen, and that’s all there is to it, and there is no problem.