Jules Kounde has officially been presented as a Barcelona player today at the Tito Vilanova training ground as the Camp Nou undergoes renovation. The presentation was followed up with a signing of contracts, some showboating, and then a press conference.
As is tradition, Barcelona president Joan Laporta also accompanied the new signing for the presser, addressing various questions from the press.
He started by welcoming Kounde to the club, saying, “It’s an important day for the club, we brought in a player of great quality.”
“Kounde has always shown his desire to play for Barcelona and resisted everything else. He’s a great signing for the club.”
Naturally, the press asked Laporta about player registrations and how the club will achieve that. They were in a huge mess regarding that in the last two windows, but the president said the situation is different now.
“There’s optimism and confidence to register all signings. The club has carried out some operations that will allow us to comply with the regulations and will not hinder us.”
There have been strong rumours linking Lionel Messi with a return to Barcelona, and while Laporta has already addressed this multiple times already, he was asked about it again.
“I don’t want to comment on it because he’s a PSG player. I don’t want to comment on this topic because he plays for PSG and we have great memories of him. Then, we’ll see.”
Apart from Messi, the club is also linked to Bernardo Silva, Cesar Azpilicueta, and Marcos Alonso. Laport gave a hint about their (or other) signings, saying:
“There may still be some other incorporations until the window closes.”
Bernardo? The first thing is to register our signings, and this is what we’re focused on. Then we will see what we can do,” he added.
Finally, he very casually dropped the bomb about a third lever, a 25% sale of Barça Studios.
“We have proceeded with the sale of 25% of Barça Studios for €100 million to socios.com.”
Source: BarçaTV+