Barcelona missed out on signing Mexican right back Julian Araujo because it was 18 seconds late turning in his transfer documentation.
Barcelona director of football Mateu Alemany said Wednesday
that a “system error" caused the club to miss the midnight deadline at the
end of the transfer window Tuesday.
Alemany said the club was talking to FIFA to see if the
transfer could still be completed.
The 21-year-old Araujo was born in the United States and
would transfer from the Los Angeles Galaxy in Major League Soccer.
Alemany said the club planned to bring Araujo to be
initially used at Barcelona’s “B" squad.
Still struggling to comply with the Spanish league’s strict
financial fair-play rules, Barcelona did not make any additions to its squad at
the transfer window, but it was able to give young star Gavi a first-team
contract.
The Catalan club cleared some salary cap room with the
retirement of veteran defender Gerard Pique and the departures of forward
Memphis Depay to Atletico Madrid and defender Hector Bellerin to Sporting
Lisbon.
“He’s a player who was coming to join Barca Atletic, there
was a bit of confusion in that sense," Barcelona sporting director Mateu
Alemany told Movistar on Wednesday.
“Basically we didn’t get there in time because of a computer
error, we’re trying to clarify what caused it, and it’s likely it was the
system that caused it.
“As it’s 18 seconds, I don’t know what FIFA will do."
As well as Bellerin’s departure, Barcelona sold forward
Memphis Depay to Atletico Madrid in January.
French side Paris Saint-Germain also had a deadline-day loan
move fall through for Chelsea midfielder Hakim Ziyech, after the London side
did not send the required documents in time.
Barcelona lead La Liga on 50 points, eight ahead of Real
Madrid, who have played a game less.
0 comments:
Post a Comment