Frenchman unhappy at how his recent departure from Camp Nou was handled.
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AS Monaco defender Eric Abidal has criticised his former club FC Barcelona for getting rid of him this summer after his successful recovery from a liver transplant, according to reports in the Daily Mail.
The France international was diagnosed with a tumour on his liver in March 2011, with the 33-year-old then undergoing a transplant the following March, before being given the all-clear to resume his career at Camp Nou in December 2012.
And the left-back made an emotional return to the Barca first team when he came on as a second-half substitute to replace captain Carles Puyol in a Liga encounter against Real Mallorca on April 6 2013.
However, the Spanish champions then decided at the end of last season not to offer Abidal a new contract to remain in Catalonia, with the versatile defender deciding to move to newly-promoted Ligue 1 outfit Monaco on a one-year deal instead, ending a six-year career in Spain.
But the Frenchman now says that he was unhappy with the way in which his departure from Barca was handled, in particular by club president Sandro Rosell, with Abidal claiming that had previous Barcelona head coach Pep Guardiola still been in charge of the Catalans, then he would not have decided to leave the club last summer.
“If Guardiola was still at Barça then I would probably have stayed,” he said. “He is someone who appreciated me and we have stayed in contact. He is a wonderful coach,” Abidal told L’Equipe.
“It was difficult to accept their decision. But what choice did I have?
“The things that Barça were saying in the press conference that they held to announce my departure did not make a lot of sense. It was not about money because during the months when I was ill the club did not pay me.”