Laporta: We have rescued Barcelona; our stars do not need to be sold

Barcelona president Joan Laporta says he and his board has rescued the club from financial meltdown.

Laporta also insists there are plans in place to buy players without having to sell.

Laporta stated that “we have saved Barça from financial ruin by making brave decisions. We’ve broken a club record for sponsorship deals and also for people coming along to our facilities”.

With that in mind, Laporta reflected on the difficulty of signing players: “It is due to the salary cap imposed by LaLiga. We were well above the limit when he came in, by 300-350 million. Now we have reduced it by 100 million and we hope to reach 175 million in the summer. In the meantime, we have built a very competitive team for 74 million, when you take signings and sales into account. Every time we overcome an obstacle, LaLiga changes the rule for us. It happened with the financial levers and they put a limit on us after making them. I don’t want to cause controversy, but I could write a monograph about it.

“It also happened with the buyback options and other things too, like how to calculate revenue and the identity of the auditors who validate certain operations, which can only be certain people. Let me be clear clear; LaLiga are allowed to do that. But it makes life incredibly difficult; let’s see if they start to make it a little easier for us. We will continue working to register players, we’re following the treasury plan and we want to improve our relationship with LaLiga.”

When asked if the reduction of the salary cap would lead to the possible sale of players like Ansu Fati, Laporta was clear: “That’s not an option for us, we have high hopes for him. We are not thinking about selling him. I cannot predict the future, but it depends on the coach playing him and feeling that he is a useful member of the roster. He has the ability to live up to the expectations we have of him.

“I cannot hazard a guess about the future of any player, but it is not necessary for us to sell players to be able to sign others. We are not obliged to do so because we believe there are other solutions.”

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