Recent rumours have placed Nico Williams at the top of Barcelona’s summer transfer agenda, with Deco leading a delegation in Ibiza as the Catalans attempt to broker a deal for the highly-rated Athletic Club winger.
As long as Barca pay the player’s €62m release clause he will join the club, as personal terms on a six-year contract are already reported to have been agreed.
Joan Laporta has certainly been keen to talk up the positives, telling the Senate - the club’s 1,000 most senior members - that “We’re on the verge of making an imminent signing. We’ll surely be able to sign another player who excites us a lot.”
Ordinary Meeting Senat 2025 Of FC Barcelona Photo by Javier Borrego / AFP7 via Getty Images
No prizes for guessing who that is, and should Nico soon join, he’ll follow hot on the heels of Joan Garcia, announced on Wednesday as a new goalkeeper.
However, just as Barca had problems with the registration of Dani Olmo 12 months ago, so the annual back and forth between La Liga and the club is about to begin again.
Financial Fair Play in the Spanish league states that clubs must accede to a specific 1:1 rule, and Barca have found it incredibly hard in the recent past to be able to do so, if not impossible.
Javier Tebas, the head of La Liga, seems to genuinely enjoy the jousting with the likes of Laporta and Florentino Perez in Madrid, making their lives as difficult as possible at times.
It’s no surprise then that ahead of Laporta’s bullish declaration, Tebas had quite the opposite view.
Presentation Of ISDE Sports Convention With Javier Tebas Photo by Oscar J. Barroso / AFP7 via Getty Images
“Barcelona are not currently under the 1:1 rule. They have to do some things to be able to register him (Garcia). Not many things, but still some things, and they know what they are.”
If Nico is to have any chance of pulling on the Blaugrana shirt alongside some of his countrymen next season, it’s clear that Laporta and Deco have got to pull some strings.
Maybe their desperation to sign a player who turned them down 12 months ago but is now, apparently, amenable to the idea, is behind Deco’s ham-fisted attempts to get Marc-Andre ter Stegen out of the door in double-quick time, with Ronald Araujo possibly following shortly afterwards.
Another complicated summer then potentially awaits. Barca have seen players such as Olmo and Kounde miss the start of new seasons due to registrations wrangles, let’s hope there’s no repeat this year.