Pep Guardiola is expected to move out of his £8.5million mansion in Barcelona after his shock split from wife Cristina Serra.

On Monday evening, reports from Spain claimed that Guardiola and his wife Cristina had decided to separate after 30 years together. 

Guardiola, who has three grown-up children with his fashion boss wife, has always stayed at their family home – an £8.4million mansion in Barcelona’s most elite neighbourhood – when he has returned to the Catalan capital from Manchester.

Now, it remains clear as to where he will base himself in the future when he spends time in Barcelona. When not in the Spanish city, he lives in Deansgate CitySuites in central Manchester.

Cristina is expected to remain in the family home, which used to be owned by Guardiola’s former Mexican centre-back Rafa Marquez.

Guardiola purchased the property, situated in the high part of Barcelona, from a Russian businessman in February 2021.

He is understood to have purchased it through a company he was running with his wife. The purchase price was a cool €10million (£8.4 million). 

The four-storey house, near to a six-mile stretch of dirt tracks on the outskirts of Barcelona called Carretera de les Aigues, has a large swimming pool in its grounds.

It occupies a plot of more than 22,000 square feet and the house itself is an impressive 8,000 square feet.

Catalan press seized on the house purchase, which was made public in June 2021, as a sign Guardiola could be planning a return to Barcelona following Joan Laporta’s election as its president.

Cristina Serra moved into the property two years after leaving Manchester to return to her home city.

Spanish news outlet El Confidencial described the mansion as ‘the perfect place for a separation without anyone discovering when you leave or enter’ although it insisted the couple had spent Christmas together at the property with their three children Maria, 24; Marius, 22; and 17-year-old Valentina.

It added: ‘It’s the €10million (£8.4m) mansion that marked the physical distancing of Guardiola and his wife in 2021.’

Guardiola’s current home – when he’s not in Barcelona – is located in the Deansgate CitySuites in central Manchester.

It is here that Guardiola spends some of his free time away from the touchline, with two floors being taken up by privately-owned apartments.

The building is 16 storeys high and holds 237 one and two-bedroom apartments, all of which comes with their own well-fitted kitchens and a large living room area.

Meanwhile, the Spanish journalist who broke the shock news has insisted that Guardiola and his wife Cristina have not split because of a third person. 

Lorena Vazquez, who forms part of a highly-respected duo of reporters known in Spain as the Mamarazzis, said overnight: ‘It’s been a carefully-considered decision the couple discussed over several months.

‘They continue to have a cordial and affectionate relationship. No-one else is involved. There are no third parties. We are going to carry on seeing them together.’

She added after revealing the couple’s shock split: ‘They weren’t expecting any journalists or media outlets would confirm this break-up but I can assure you they’re living apart and only a small handful of people knew about this.’