First team

CHAIRMAN: “IF THE FANS AND SQUAD MOVE IN THE SAME DIRECTION, WE'LL BE ON THE RIGHT LINE”

12/01/2018
José Castro accompanied Arana in his official presentation as a Sevilla FC player

Sevilla FC club Chairman José Castro accompanied Guilherme Arana in his presentation as a Sevilla player this Friday morning. He took the chance to evaluate the current state of the club, admitting it has been a "complicated" month but that "we have to move onwards and upwards and be optimistic".

"It's been a tough week because of the loss to our arch-rivals in a back and forth game which they were much more clinical in. They dominated some facets at different points in the game but we have to turn the page and talk about our aims, which years ago weren't even this league. We have to think about Alavés and about winning. It's been a difficult week - there are many - but we have to move onwards and upwards and be optimistic. The truth is the past month has been complicated and hasn't seen very good results but we are alive in all competitions and only Real Madrid, Barça and us can say that. The board will now look to bolster the team as much as it can to help us achieve our objectives", said Castro. 

"The people are hurt and the fans have the right to express themselves because these are difficult moments"

He continued: "Yesterday's match was strange because the people are hurt after the derby. The fans have a right to express themselves but booing isn't the right way, we need to support our players. If the fans and the squad move together in the same direction, we'll be on the right lines. But this is football, they're difficult moments and what we have to do is pick up wins to turn it around". 

A situation which the Chairman insisted the team "is working to turn around. We haven't managed it because the sensation we're getting is that the team hasn't given their expected performance up until now but that doesn't mean they haven't been working hard and well. We're working with the symptoms, we changed manager and today, for example, we're here presenting a new player who in June would have cost twice as much. Having the best team is important but we're also a society. We have to have calm. The team will do much better than they have been doing, this is a question of a bad run. We also have to give the new coach time because we want our fans to enjoy themselves again and as our coach said so well yesterday, to turn those boos into applause".

Asked about recent criticism from Joaquín Caparrós and Maradona, José Castro responded to both: "Maradona hasn't seen the earlier matches, if he had he wouldn't have viewed the dismissal of Berizzo as unjust. With regards to Caparrós, his criticism has surprised me because, being a loyal Sevillista, we need to come together during a difficult week. I respect his opinion, but right now we are focused on helping management to get the resources they need to make this season a good one". 

The Chairman also discussed the nonexistent negotiation with Manchester with regards to the Champions League tickets: "They didn't want to negotiate the price of the tickets. We set them at a price that seemed fair and they complained. They didn't pay any attention so they complaints don't stand up. All of this has been explained in a statement that we have already made public. We also requested the 5% established by UEFA and they gave us 4.1%, which we will clear up with UEFA".

In the same regard, he insisted that he's calm about his fiscal arrangements: "They'll end up filing it because I've done nothing outside of the law and they'll discover that with time"; he finally finished up by confirming "N'Zonzi is one more player in the squad at the moment and no offers have arrived for him".