Xavi likely to leave veteran Barcelona duo unregistered ahead of Getafe encounter

With Barcelona set to kick off the defence of their La Liga title on Sunday against Getafe, they are yet to take care of the player registrations.

At the moment, the Blaugrana have only 12 players registered with La Liga, of which Ousmane Dembele will be out of the club imminently.

The La Liga champions are yet to register any of their new signings as well as the players who signed new contracts, something that they must address before the kickoff at Coliseum Alfonso Perez on Sunday.

As such, the Catalan giants are waiting on an income from the German investors who will be buying a 16% stake in Barça Studios.

Hiccups in the economic lever

The deal with German fund ‘Libero’ was for €60 million in exchange for 16% shares in Barça Studios – with the shares coming from the 24.5% owned by Orpheus Media and Socios.com (8% each), owing to the latter two delaying in instalment payments.

However, according to Mundo Deportivo, despite there being a total agreement between Barça and Libero for a 16% stake in the asset, the two parties agreed earlier today that for now only trade of 5% shares will be executed today in exchange for €20 million.

The remaining 11% stake will be sold for €40 million to the same company, but the payment would be made before the transfer window closes and not right away.

Xavi has to choose players to register

Consequently, with Barcelona having €20 million instead of the €60 million expected, they will not be able to complete all the registrations ahead of the weekend’s game despite the income from Franck Kessie’s and Dembele’s sales.

The report states that Barcelona will be able to register most of the unregistered stars but not all and the decision would be up to manager Xavi Hernandez.

And, as per the report, the 43-year-old tactician is likely to leave out new signing Inigo Martinez and fellow veteran star Marcos Alonso from the registration list for the time being.

The plan is to register players who are key to the team and as such, Ronald Araujo, who signed a new contract over a year ago, will be prioritised along with captain Sergi Roberto, backup goalkeeper Inaki Pena, and first-choice left-back Alejandro Balde.

Meanwhile, new signings Ilkay Gundogan and Oriol Romeu will also be registered by the Blaugrana, but Martinez, who is currently injured and cannot play for some more time, will be left out.

Alonso is not a guaranteed starter and with Balde the preferred option at left-back, Xavi would be open to leaving the veteran defender off the registration list temporarily.