Barcelona are making good progress towards the signing of Nico Williams by all accounts, including that of President Joan Laporta. Yet the big question mark over his signing is how they will register the Basque winger.
Laporta claimed that Barcelona can ‘sign as normal’ on Wednesday night, despite Javier Tebas, President of La Liga, claiming the exact oppposite just a day before. His view was that the Catalan giants will need to make sales in order to clear enough space to register Williams.
There is a current of thought, as per MD (via Sempre Barca), that Barcelona can get to that place without selling any players that they do not want to move on from. Seven players are named as departures Director of Football Deco will push for, and they believe that if Ansu Fati, Pau Victor, Inaki Pena, Andreas Christensen, Oriol Romeu and Marc-Andre ter Stegen all exit, then they will be able to register both Joan Garcia and Williams. They say that the sale of Ronald Araujo is not being contemplated.
Barcelona have already drawn in €28.4m in sales this summer from the sale of Alex Valle, and the sell-on clauses included in the exits of Ilaix Moriba, Ludovit Reis, Alex Collado, Nico Gonzalez and Jean-Clair Todibo. Cadena SER explain that Barcelona still have active clauses in the contracts of Oscar Mingueza, Francisco Trincao, Mika Marmol, Riqui Puig and Mikayil Faye. If Ferran Jutgla leaves Club Brugge for more than €5m, Barcelona will earn 10% of what is paid on top of that.
On the other hand, if they cannot achieve the numbers desired to register Williams, Diario AS say that Barcelona could be forced into a sale they would rather not make. Fermin Lopez and Ronald Araujo stand out as candidates for those exits, who could fetch major fees.
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The primary issue for Barcelona is that of those potential exits, Christensen and ter Stegen are adamant that they will stay at the club. They represent two of the highest-paid players on that list, and convincing them to leave wold not be easy. That said, Lopez and Araujo have both declared publicly they want to stay, leaving Deco without an obvious solution.
