Barcelona sporting director hints at more winter signings: “We are working on departures”

Despite splashing around £55million for Ferran Torres, Barcelona’s Director of Football, Mateu Alemany has admitted that the club is still unable to register the former Manchester City player.

Barcelona’s financial muddle has been well documented right from the time Lionel Messi left the club. Since then, senior players like Gerard Pique, Sergio Busquets, and Jordi Alba agreed to a pay cut as the team looked to register Memphis Depay, Sergio Aguero and Eric Garcia in the summer of 2021.

Regardless of these measures though, Barcelona are still struggling to cope with La Liga’s salary cap rules. Speaking on the issue, Alemany said that the club is working on getting its affairs in order with the hope of registering Torres before Sunday.

“We are convinced that we will be able to register Ferran Torres before Sunday. We are working to achieve this.”

As things stand, Barcelona must offload players or trim down the salaries of high earners in order to get within the league’s salary cap. In that regard, Ousmane Dembele’s future has been thrown under the scanner with reports claiming that the club is still negotiating the terms.

The Frenchman has only six months left in his current Barcelona contract, meaning that he is free to agree a pre-contract agreement with any club outside of Spain. Barcelona’s stance, however, has been firm and Alemany says those in Frenchman’s camp know it all.

“Dembele? No meeting is scheduled, despite what has been coming out in the media. They know our position. It can’t take much longer. We are waiting for a definitive answer from him,” he added.

As far as departures are concerned, players like Samuel Umtiti and Philippe Coutinho are expected to be the obvious casualties as these two are among the club’s highest earners. Fortunately, it seems Dani Alves can be registered regardless of their departure.

“We have enough space to register Dani and we will register him between today and tomorrow.”

Meanwhile, Alemany also said the club might look to add more players in the January transfer market if only they could generate more revenues from sales.

“There could be more signings if fair play is generated with the departures. We are working on it and we have until the end of the month,” he concluded.

Source: BarçaTV+