Pique reveals his relationship with Barcelona president has some issues.

Barcelona defender Pique says his relationship with the current Barca president has some issues.

One of these is directly linked with Bartomeu allegedly hiring PR company I3 Ventures to criticise Pique and other legends of the club earlier this year.

Gerard has been 'hurt a lot' by that scandal.

"I want to get on with everyone but sometimes..." Gerard Pique said in an interview with La Vanguardia when asked about his relationship with Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu. 

"The issue with social media. As a Barcelona player, I see my club spending money - money they're now asking for from us - to criticise not just external people with a previous relationship to the club, but players still here. It's an atrocity.

"I asked (Bartomeu) for explanations and he told me he didn't know about it. I believed him. But then you see the person who contracted the services (Jaume Masferrer) is still at the club. And that hurts a lot.

"I'm saying here because I have already told the president. So my relationship with the president is perhaps cordial but there are still (issues) there."

Earlier this year, Bartomeu, with the help of Jaume Masferrer, had hired PR company I3 Ventures that was allegedly responsible for creating fake accounts on social media in order to denigrate the images of the club's legends like Lionel Messi, Xavi Hernandez, Pep Guardiola and Pique himself.

It was reported that the Catalans paid almost €1m to hire multiple social media accounts to 'protect the reputation of Josep Maria Bartomeu' and 'erode the image of ex-players, election candidates, etc'.