Seven years on, Xavi Simons has finally said his piece about the messiest exit of his career. Speaking as he works his way back from a serious knee injury and prepares for his second season at Tottenham Hotspur, the Dutch playmaker addressed head-on the acrimonious 2019 departure from Barcelona's academy that shaped the rest of his career.

"It was clear from the beginning that they did not believe in me," Simons said, recalling the conversation that ended his time at La Masia. "At the time I decided not to speak because I was focused only on the pitch."

According to Simons, the club's message was blunt. "We have other players that we believe in, we want to offer you a contract, but you are not one of the players who is really part of the project," he was told, effectively closing the door on a first-team future at Camp Nou.

What stung more than the rejection itself, he said, was the version of events that followed him for years afterwards: that money, not football reasoning, had driven his move to Paris Saint-Germain. "Stories came out saying that I was leaving for money," Simons said. "I love Barcelona and that version of events hurt me and it also hurt my family, because it was not true."

For a player who had spent his youth inside Barcelona's system, the suggestion that he had simply chased a bigger paycheck cut deep. Simons has consistently maintained that the decision came down to opportunity rather than finance — PSG offered him a route into senior football that Barcelona, by its own admission, was not prepared to guarantee.

That route proved eventful. As a 16-year-old in Paris, Simons trained alongside Lionel Messi, Neymar and Kylian Mbappé, an experience he has previously described as invaluable to his development, even as his path through PSG's first team never fully materialized before loan spells took him elsewhere.

His career found its rhythm at RB Leipzig, first on loan and then permanently from January 2024, where his form as a creative midfielder made him one of the Bundesliga's most sought-after players. Tottenham moved decisively last year, signing him from Leipzig in August 2025 in a deal reported by ESPN and Sky Sports at around £51 million.

The reflection on Barcelona comes at a difficult moment for Simons physically. In April 2026, he ruptured the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during Tottenham's Premier League win at Wolverhampton Wanderers, going down in the second half and eventually being stretchered off Molineux.

The injury ended his season and, more painfully, ruled him out of the 2026 World Cup with the Netherlands — a tournament he had been expected to play a central role in. He underwent surgery in the weeks that followed and has since been working through rehabilitation with Tottenham's medical staff.

Now, with his sights set on returning for what would be his second full season in north London, Simons appears keen to put both the injury and the old Barcelona narrative behind him — closing the book on a departure that, in his telling, was never about money at all.