Carles Puyol rejects Inter Milan approach to become an agent…with current Barcelona star his first client

Former Barcelona captain Carles Puyol is setting up his own agency after turning down the opportunity to work with Roberto Mancini at Inter Milan.

Puyol, who retired at the end of the 2013/14 season after six La Liga titles and three Champions League successes in 15 years, revealed he rejected the chance to work as Mancini's assistant at the Serie A club.

Upon retiring, the former Spain defender acted as assistant to then Barcelona director Andoni Zubizarreta but resigned in January 2015 after Zubizarreta was fired by Josep Maria Bartomeu.

Instead, he has teamed up with former colleague and life-long friend Ivan de la Pena to establish the agency and is reportedly looking to recruit Marc Bartra and Aymeric Laporte - both highly promising La Liga defenders - as his first clients.

Bartra, 24, has allegedly penned a deal to work with Puyol, with Manchester United monitoring the centre-back's progress.

In an interview with El Pais, Puyol laid out his vision for the project.

"My job will be to transmit, using my experience, my knowledge, with the intention of making the player more professional," he said.

"I want to be a 'life-coach' who helps them to think, to make decisions, to manage their emotions with intelligence in difficult situations.

"I don't want to be an invisible coach. I want to provide guidelines to solve problems, coming from the base I have, as I had to work a lot considering I did not play at Barca until I was 17. I didn't have the information of the kids today."

The 38-year-old also lauded De La Pena's eye for a prodigal talent.

Puyol said: "Ivan is a football fanatic -- he loves to discover talents, he spends his days watching players. He talked to me about Neymar and [Philippe] Coutinho when they were 14, and about Douglas Costa.

"Ramon is someone I trust, he will take charge of the legal, contractual and tax part."

Both Bartra and Laporte are being coveted by a host of Premier League clubs, although Barcelona's interest in the latter, who has a €50m release clause at Athletic Bilbao, could scupper any move to England.