Barcelona President Joan Laporta confirms plans for ‘Edgar Davids’-style signing in January

Barcelona President Joan Laporta has revealed that the Blaugrana will attempt to do business in January, in spite of their apparent lack of room in their salary limit. Barcelona are around €130m over their salary limit for this season, but may have some room to recruit players due to the savings they have made.

Sporting Director Deco has been coy on the matter, suggesting that fans should not get their hopes up for anything more than the arrival of Vitor Roque, who is due to complete his move from Athletico Paranaense.

Yet speaking to EFE, via Sport, Laporta explained that they are intending on doing what they can to strengthen.

“If we manage to have ‘fair play,’ the idea is to have a midfielder who in some way compensates for Gavi’s loss. It would be a loan until the end of the season, like many years ago we did with Edgar Davids, for example.”

“We have margin, I think that until the end of the year we can generate ‘fair play’, due to a series of operations that we have underway and if they are confirmed, we would have options,”

He also claims that they may not have to work within the restrictions of their salary limit for being in excess of what they are supposed to be spending next season.

“If we meet the budget, which is very ambitious, we could go to the market with the guarantees of carrying out operations that do not involve personal guarantees from the directors and it would be a matter of being able to sign normally.”

Davids arrived on loan in January in the 2003-04 season, with Frank Rijkaard under heavy pressure, and was the spark that lighted up a Barcelona side, who charged up to second in the table with the Dutch pair leading the way. He came in from Juventus, and with Gavi having gone down through injury, it looks as if they will try to emulate the impact of Davids’ signing. Whether they can find the profile and the quality that Davids brought remains to be seen, with Barcelona most patently missing a deeper midfielder to screen the back four.