Registration fears, not money, kept Nico Williams at Athletic Club, agent reveals

Nico Williams remained at Athletic Club last summer because Barcelona failed to assure his camp that he would be eligible to play after any transfer, his agent Félix Tainta has said — placing registration uncertainty, rather than money or sporting ambition, at the heart of why the deal collapsed.

Tainta outlined the breakdown of the 2025 negotiations on the Los Fulanos podcast, as reported by Mundo Deportivo. He said discussions reached a stage where Williams could not accept the risk of joining Barcelona and finding himself unable to feature — a concern sharpened, Tainta added, by the approaching 2026 World Cup and the forward’s need to remain in regular competitive football.

The agent was clear that the issue was not whether Barcelona wanted Williams, but whether they could provide the contractual certainty his camp required before agreeing to move. When those assurances did not materialise, Williams stayed in Bilbao and signed a new Athletic contract through 2035.

Tainta said Barcelona’s interest had first emerged in the summer of 2024, following Williams’ standout performances at the European Championship with Spain. He also named Arsenal, Bayern Munich, Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain as clubs that had expressed interest in the winger, though he stopped short of claiming any of those sides had made formal offers or agreed terms.

The representative said Athletic Club were kept informed throughout, with Tainta briefing the club on the conversations with Barcelona as they progressed. He described Williams as having genuinely considered leaving and acknowledged the sporting ceiling that comes with remaining outside Spain’s top two, but said the final decision was to stay.

Tainta also revisited Williams’ December 2023 renewal, describing it as a three-year extension that preserved the same release clause — a deal he framed as evidence of the player’s loyalty even when free agency had been a realistic alternative.

For Barcelona, the episode underlines a structural problem in their recruitment: a player’s interest in joining the club cannot close a transfer if his representatives are not confident he will be cleared to play. Tainta’s account does not identify the specific cause of the registration uncertainty, nor does it speak to fee calculations or salary-cap mechanics — it simply establishes that the guarantee Barcelona could not provide was the decisive factor in Williams choosing to commit his future to Athletic Club instead.