Vitor Roque's agent reveals why striker left Barcelona | OneFootball

Vitor Roque left Barcelona because "everyone" thought Pau Victor was a better player, the Brazilian striker's defiant representative has claimed.

Roque's permanent €25m exit to Palmeiras was completed over the weekend after overcoming a potential problem with red tape related to cutting short his loan at Real Betis.

For Barcelona, the situation has been resolved in their favour. Roque was afforded hardly any game time upon his arrival last January and then moved to Betis on a season-long deal ahead of this campaign. He struggled to make much more of an impact there, effectively replaced when the Sevilla-based club brought in Cucho Hernandez in January, but still commanded a sizeable fee.

Palmeiras have paid a South American record for Roque, just barely out of his teenage years. Potentially attainable add-ons could take the deal to €30m, which would see Barcelona recoup all of their outlay – a further €31m in add-ons in the original agreement with Athletico Paranaense were left untriggered.

The Catalans could even turn a profit in future due to holding a 20% sell-on clause.

"Barcelona and the press, everyone said that Pau Victor was a better player. So we left," adviser Andre Cury told Catalan radio station RAC1.

Where Cury's comments become pointed is that Victor, signed permanently last summer following a loan with Barcelona's B team and promoted to plug gaps in the first-team squad, has started just once across all competitions and only has two goals to his name in 21 appearances.

Andre Cury claims Barcelona put more faith in Pau Victor / Yasser Bakhsh/GettyImages

Cury appears confident that this is only a minor blip for Roque, who he expects to quickly return to Europe for a second bite at the cherry within the next few seasons.

"My relationship with [sporting director] Deco is not affected. They have received money back, which the club needs. There was a lot of nonsense about Vitor Roque not being worth anything and [Palmeiras] bought him for almost the same price," he continued

"Vitor Roque is not leaving Barca with a bad feeling. I think he could return to Barca in a few years," also going on to reference a "three times" bigger offer from Tottenham Hotspur that the player turned down in order to join the Catalans giants in the first place.

"We know Barca well. There is a lot of pressure and the press doesn't help in this sense, saying that one is better and one is worse. Young players have to be calm in order to demonstrate their performance over time.

"My opinion is that Vitor Roque is like [Ronald] Araujo. When I signed Araujo, the first few months they said he couldn't play for Barca and then, with time and work, he demonstrated his quality as a player.

"Look at how Real Madrid is treating Endrick and they haven't loaned him out, they're with him. The Catalans are spoiled. Ronaldo arrives [in 1996] and scores goals, Romario arrives [in 1993] and the same thing happens and people think that everything is going like that.

"[Roque] is a great player, a great kid. Things didn't go as well as we all thought. I think that coming in the winter didn't do him any good. He's a very young kid. He's going to take this path of returning to Brazil for one or two seasons and then he'll return to Europe. At 21 or 22, I think he'll be back."