I could have kissed him on the mouth, but not there

Can’t say that Gerard Pique is one that does not make the news, in any field you want to consider it. Successful former footballer like few others, with an endless showcase between Barcelona and the Spanish national team (just mention the four Champions Leagues, the World Cup, the European Championship won), then an entrepreneur who with his sporting event production company Kosmos managed to placing coups such as the new Davis Cup in tennis (from this year no longer his prerogative) and the newly formed Kings League, the 36-year-old Catalan did not miss anything, controversies and scandals included.

Even now that he has hung up his boots, Piqué is on the front page every day for his separation from Shakira and all that ensued from his new relationship with the young woman Clara Chia Marti to the poison thrown at him by the Colombian singer in his latest songs. Nothing the former defender can’t handle, as he has demonstrated in recent months when the enormous pressure would have crushed many others. After all, he himself does not avoid media overexposure, given how much he is personally involved in the management and promotion of Kings League – which has recently seen the entry of Ronaldinho – on Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.

In addition to the live coverage of the seven-a-side football matches, the presidents of the participating teams have a fixed appointment in which they meet to talk about the tournament in live streaming, but also about the most diverse topics. It was on that occasion that Piqué proudly exhibited the Casio to respond to Shakira’s dissing and it was always there that a few nights ago he returned to the very famous 2010 photo in which he was portrayed in an attitude that appeared very tender with Zlatan Ibrahimovic, his partner in Barcelona at the time.

The two were immortalized by a paparazzi as they came out of training and the intimate way in which they were chatting – Piqué was also shaking the Swede’s hand – had attracted a lot of attention. At that moment the Spaniard was starting the relationship with Shakira and the media threw themselves into that shot. Now, 13 years later, the former Barcelona player has returned to the subject to clarify the matter. It was his sidekick in his Kings League adventure, the famous Spanish streamer Ibai Llanos, who pulled out the photo in question and teased Piqué: “You kissed on the mouth with Zlatan at that time, can we let the love flow, please?“. Among the laughter of those present at the episode of ‘After Kings’, including the footballer himself, the latter did not hold back and responded to the insistent requests that were made to him: “Tell us the truth“.

“In that photo we are in the club parking lot – therefore explained Piqué, making it clear that if one wants to do something so intimate he certainly does not do it in front of everyone – my car and the press are there. I could have kissed Zlatan on the mouth, but not in the club parking lot! You know what I mean, the photo is totally out of context“.

“But then above all the reaction of Zlatan. The next day he leaves the Ciudad Deportiva and all the paparazzi are waiting for him – continued Piqué, recalling how annoyed he was by the Ibrahimovic affair – Zlatan is in the car and at the exit there are journalists from gossip broadcasts, including Telecinco. They put the microphone on him, he rolls down the window and the journalist takes the opportunity to ask him what happened. He says: ‘Come to my house with your sister and I’ll show you that I’m not gay’“.

It is not the first time that Piqué refers to that situation with Ibra, in 2015 he spoke about it with the English magazine Four Four Two: “I had just published my autobiography and Zlatan came to congratulate me. I’m a tactile person and the photographer captured the moment we were shaking hands. I couldn’t believe what this had turned into, but I can’t say this reaction surprised me, we were ahead of Real Madrid with just a few games left in the championship, so the press were able to take advantage of it to destabilize us“.