Barcelona respond to Maradona: There are some comments that qualify themselves LaLiga Santander Barcelona will visit Asia during the 2019/20 pre-season

Josep Vives, the spokesperson for the Barcelona board, has revealed that the Catalan club will stop off in Asia as part of their pre-season tour next summer.

Specifically, there will be visits to China and in Japan.

This is quite a change for the Blaugrana after spending the past two pre-seasons in the United States.

They haven't visited the continent since the 2015 Club World Cup in Japan.

Vives also addressed a number of other topics, one of them being Diego Maradona's recent criticism of Lionel Messi.

"There are some comments that qualify themselves," he said.

"We have a person who qualifies himself to himself from silence and discretion.

"He is the best player of all time without any doubt and he does his talking on the pitch."

Another player who has been in the headlines in recent days is Arda Turan, whose rights are still owned by Barcelona and who is facing calls from Turkish prosecutors for a 12-and-a-half-year jail sentence.

"We don't like to hear of these types of news stories, no matter who it involves," Vives said.

"In this case even less so because it involves Arda Turan, who has been here and who he have friendship links with.

"We don't like these situations.

"We don't have anything more to say about this incident."

Vives also discussed the contracts of Messi and of Ernesto Valverde.

"[Renewing Messi] isn't something that it on the table at the moment," he said.

"We don't comment on contracts that are subject to confidentiality clauses.

"The best reflection of his situation is seeing how he is playing each week and how he is acting as captain.

"[With Valverde], it's hard to move closer to something with whom you are already close.

"We are very satisfied and comfortable with Valverde.

"He has a contract and we respect it."