Former Bayern Munich and Real Madrid manager Jupp Heynckes will not have been impressed with Barcelona’s January transfer activity if comments he made in 2018 are anything to go by.
Barcelona strengthened their frontline with the acquisition of Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang on a free after he mutually terminated his contract with Arsenal.
The 32-year-old had been frozen out by Mikel Arteta following another disciplinary breach which resulted in him being stripped of his captaincy at the club.
And that is not the first time Aubameyang has fallen out with a club’s hierarchy, with the Gabon international experiencing similar issues at Borussia Dortmund.
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In January 2018 Aubameyang’s disciplinary concerns came into focus after he was dropped from Dortmund’s squad for missing a team meeting.
Then manager Peter Stoger revealed that he had cleared the air with Aubameyang at the time, but he ultimately left for Arsenal in that window just a few weeks later.
During the height of that episode, Heynckes branded Aubameyang “selfish” and said he wouldn’t sign players who only concerned themselves with individual aspirations — placing another current Barcelona player in that bracket of concern.
When asked on his thoughts about football’s declining moral complexion, Heynckes said to a press conference at the time: “That exists all along, but at the moment there are totally different dimensions, I see that very critically.
“I think footballers are very privileged, all the more if you see how hard many people have to work for their salary. So, I think professional ethics and morals belong to this. You have to see what’s going on in the society.
“Things which happened with Aubameyang and [Ousmane] Dembele I see very critically. The clubs which sign those players have to be aware; they [Aubameyang and Dembele] could do the same to them.
“I would refuse to sign such players. Football is a team sport; you can’t just be selfish and follow your own goals. You have to think about the fans as well.
“We have to pay attention so that the fans don’t turn their backs on us and football.
“If I see that Arsenal was not really successfully in the last years but their tickets became more and more expensive, that’s a problem. In Anderlecht our fans protested against the ticket prices – and they were totally right.”