Luis Enrique refuses to be drawn on Barca future

Luis Enrique is refusing to discuss his future until the end of the season, despite president Josep Maria Bartomeu stating that the Barcelona coach will stay at the club.

Barcelona will seal a famous treble in Luis Enrique’s first season in charge if they beat Athletic Bilbao in the Copa del Rey a week on Saturday and Juventus in the UEFA Champions League final a week later.

Despite such impressive exploits in his maiden campaign at the helm, reports have claimed that the former Spain international may be set to leave Camp Nou.

Barca president Bartomeu this week stated that Luis Enrique will remain with the Spanish champions, amid talk of Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti being in contention to take over.

Luis Enrique, however, refused to be drawn on talk of his position on the eve of Xavi’s Camp Nou farewell against Deportivo La Coruna on Saturday.

He said: “I have nothing to comment on that matter, I am thinking about three games: one in the league and two finals. That’s all I am going to be talking about right now.

“I have got nothing special to say on the matter anyway, but I’m not going to speak about that until the end of the season.

“What I do is focus on what I can control at the moment, which is the games that we’ve got left to play.”

The Barca coach respects Xavi’s decision to join Qatar club Al Sadd and expects the long-serving captain to get a great send-off.

He said: “We’ve spoken about Xavi infinite times. He’s now made his decision, he’s said what he feels, what he thinks is correct for himself.

“Unfortunately it’s a decision that players when they get to a certain age have to make. I think this is the right time, it’s a good time to say goodbye to the Camp Nou and hopefully he will get the best farewell possible. 

“If he was going to stay the same age for the rest of his life then we would renew his contract 25 more times times, but age catches up with all of us.

“For me he is still quite capable of playing for Barca for at least one more season, but that is his decision.”