Former Barcelona star admits he moved to club ‘for a woman’

World Cup-winner Emmanuel Petit has admitted that the reason he joined Barcelona was for love, but not of the club, rather a romantic interest.

Petit joined the Blaugrana in the summer of 2000 for a fee of €16m, but struggled to hold down a starting spot while at Camp Nou. He would leave a year later to join Chelsea. During a recent interview with Stadium Astro, Petit admitted that he regretted leaving Arsenal in the first place.

Petit married French actress Agathe de la Fontaine in 2000, but the pair divorced again in 2002, after the pair had a child together. Petit has told Football España before of the difficulty he had adapting to the style of play, the positional game that had been typified by Pep Guardiola at that time, and the media climate there. Moved back to defence by Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, he he suffered injuries and subsequently fell out with the coach.