Barcelona president Joan Laporta claims the club turned down an offer worth $270 million (€250M) for forward Lamine Yamal in the summer.
Laporta did not reveal who wanted to sign Yamal, but various reports have suggested Paris Saint-Germain had lined the teenager up as a replacement for Kylian Mbappé, who joined Real Madrid earlier this year.
Laporta made the revelation as he defended Barça’s decision to let certain players leave, denying that the club’s financial problems had forced their hand in certain situations.
“There are those that think we have [transferred players] to balance the accounts,” Laporta said in an interview with Barça’s in-house television channel. “But that is not the case. The players that have left have left for sporting reasons.
“[Ousmane] Dembélé, [Marc] Guiu… they won’t have things as good as they did at Barça at any other club.
“We know what we are doing in the transfer market. We want those that are the best and who want to be here to stay — and we have shown that.
“A club came to me to sign Lamine for €250M and I said no.”
Since making his first team debut as a 15-year-old in 2023, Yamal has become a regular for club and country.
The 17-year-old has already made over 60 appearances for Barça and played a key role as Spain won the European Championships this past summer.
In an interview with ESPN this week, Cesc Fabregas labelled him the biggest talent in world football, but there are already concerns over his exposure to senior football.
Barça midfielder Pedri has suffered injury problems since playing both the European Championships and the Olympic Games with Spain in the summer of 2021 and there is a desire to avoid a similar situation with Yamal.
A club vs. country row threatened to break out this week when Spain coach Luis de la Fuente said the onus should be on clubs to rest players — not the national teams — but an argument was avoided when Yamal returned to Barça after picking up a hamstring strain in Spain’s game against Denmark.
“It’s the clubs that pay the players,” Laporta reminded De la Fuente. “You have to keep that in mind. [De la Fuente] proclaims [Spain] just have them for one game a month, very well, but we pay the players.
“We don’t want a repeat of what happened with Pedri. Making Lamine play [against Denmark] was reckless. Of course we defended our interests and they understood our planning and what the player felt.
“Lamine is a big personality and in the end the correct criteria was applied.”
Yamal returned to Barcelona on Sunday, sitting out Spain’s win over Serbia on Tuesday, and is rated as touch-and-go for Sunday’s LaLiga game against Sevilla.
However, Barça are hopeful he will be fine for the games which follow, against Bayern Munich in the Champions League and away at Real Madrid in the league on Oct. 26.
Yamal has scored five goals and set up five more in 11 appearances for Barça this season, forming part of the most productive front three in Europe’s top five leagues alongside Raphinha and Robert Lewandowski.
