Athletic Bilbao condemn Bielsa's altercation with construction company employee

Jul 6, 2012 4:55:00 PM

The Basque club have apologised for the coach's inflammatory comments on Thursday and insisted that work on the Lezama facility has so far been carried out correctly

Athletic Bilbao have issued a statement distancing themselves from coach Marcelo Bielsa's altercation with a construction company employee on Wednesday.

The Argentine coach called a press conference on Thursday to reveal that he had been involved in a heated argument with the site manager after discovering that scheduled work at the club's Lezama training facility had not been completed in time for the start of pre-season training.

He claimed to being worried about the physical condition of his players in such poor conditions, but Athletic have declared that they do not condone the coach's actions.

"Athletic Bilbao do not share the personal and subjective opinion expressed by Marcelo Bielsa in [Thursday's] press conference with regards to the construction work, the extent to which the contract has been honoured and the professionalism of the people involved," a club statement read.

"We would like to state that the works contract has been fulfilled correctly up until the current date, so we would like to publicly apologise for any damage that the comments made by an employee of this club may have caused to the construction company and its workers."

Bielsa, who took charge of Athletic in the summer of 2011, guided the Basque club to the final of the Copa del Rey and the Europa League in his first season in charge.

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