Barcelona president: We received a €200m offer for Lamine Yamal

Tom Weber

Updated: 23 Mar 2024 17:10 GMT
3 min read

Lamine Yamal, Barcelona, money — © IMAGO

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has claimed that he turned down a €200 million offer for Lamine Yamal.

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The Blaugrana chief has been on a veritable media campaign on Saturday, speaking to Mundo Deportivo and the Barca One podcast. After earlier asserting that the signing of Erling Haaland would upset Barcelona's team balance, the 61-year-old has now made another eyebrow-raising statement.

Speaking to the above-mentioned podcast, Laporta claimed that the Catalans received an offer worth €200m for wonderkid Lamine Yamal, which was rejected out of hand. He also insisted that the cash-strapped LaLiga giants could have raised €1 billion from selling key players in recent times, but that they chose not to as the club is now on the road to financial recovery.

Strange as it may sound, this isn't the first time it has been claimed that Barcelona rejected such an offer for Yamal. At the beginning of March, MARCA made the same, scarcely believable assertion, alleging that the bid originated from PSG looking to sign a replacement for Kylian Mbappe.

What did Laporta say?

"We get offers for players like Lamine Yamal, for €200m, and we have said no," Laporta told Barca One. "Because we trust in the boy, in his sporting projection, and we don't have the need for the money anyway. We are in a process of economic recovery and already seeing the end of the tunnel."

"We have had offers for Alejandro Balde, Fermín, for Gavi, Pedri, [Frenkie] de Jong, [Ronald] Araujo... But we don't want to sell them. Only taking into account these players that I have told you about, we would be at a figure of €1bn in income...but we are very satisfied with all of them."

Laporta also confirmed that Barcelona want to keep loanees Joao Felix and Joao Cancelo from Atletico Madrid and Man City, respectively. "We are willing to keep both of them, whether with the transfer formula of setting a purchase price or by continuing with the same [loan] conditions that we have now with the respective clubs."