Joan García Cleared for Barcelona Debut
Barcelona goalkeeper Joan García will be available for the league’s opening match against Mallorca this Saturday. This is possible thanks to LaLiga’s authorization, which allowed the club to use the salary space allocated for the injured Marc-André ter Stegen.
Even though Barça still exceeds LaLiga’s financial fair play rules, the regulations allow new signings to be registered instead of players considered long-term injured.
LaLiga defines “long term” as four months, and a LaLiga panel ruled on Wednesday that Ter Stegen’s back injury meets these parameters.
Barcelona already used this measure last season to register Dani Olmo in place of the injured Andreas Christensen.
This puts an end to the situation between Ter Stegen and the Catalan club.
The German goalkeeper had initially indicated that back surgery would keep him out for three months, but he eventually agreed and signed the club’s injury report after being temporarily stripped of the captaincy.
This means that García, a 25-million-euro signing from Espanyol, will be registered for the start of the defense of the Spanish champions’ title this weekend.
Meanwhile, sources close to the club reported that the Barça board of directors was preparing to offer a guarantee of 7 million euros against future earnings to secure the registration of other players, including Marcus Rashford.
Rashford, the new signing Roony Bardghji and defender Gerard Martín, who is about to sign a new contract, are among the players waiting to be registered.
The president of Barça, Joan Laporta, had repeatedly expressed his confidence that the club would stay within the league’s fair play rules this summer.
However, while they await LaLiga’s approval for certain agreements, including the sale of VIP seats in the renovated Spotify Camp Nou, the board agreed to offer a guarantee at a meeting on Wednesday.
The guarantee is basically a promise from the directors to cover a specific amount if the club cannot meet its financial obligations.
For LaLiga, a valid guarantee counts as assured future income, as the league considers it equivalent to having cash in the bank, which allows Barça to temporarily increase its spending limit.
