Izuchukwu OkosiBarcelona head coach Xavi Hernandez has categorically stated that the La Liga champions cannot afford the duo of Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland despite transfer speculations linking the club to the star players.
The January transfer window opened on New Year’s Day with some transfer news bound to link the club to some if the best players in the world.
Xavi has however poured water on the possibility of signing the PSG and Manchester City players.
“Erling Haaland or Mbappe? We can’t think of Haaland or Mbappe. Barcelona can’t afford these players now, unfortunately,” he told reporters.
“I’m happy with the players I have,” the former Barcelona midfield genius stressed.
“We are not in a privileged situation economically to do that. I am left with the players I have, and with those players we have to win. We have to win titles and we have to play well because the bar is very high.”
Barcelona had managed to sign stars likes of Robert Lewandowski, Jules Kounde, Raphinha and Ferran Torres among others with innovative means to avoid Financial Fairplay punishment.
Barcelona came from a goal down to beat Las Palmas 2-1 with the opponents goal scored by former youngster El Hadadi.
The club have had to rely on loan deals to fill their squad for the 2023/24 season but Brazilian youngster Vitor Roque has arrived from Athletico Paranaense to add more firepower to Xavi’s strong attack.
Barcelona are currently fourth on the La Liga table.
Izuchukwu Okosi is a Nigerian sports and entertainment journalist with two decades of experience in the media industry having begun his media journey in 2002 as an intern at Mundial Sports International (MSI) and Africa Independent Television (AIT), owners of Daar Communications Plc.
In October 2004, Okosi joined Complete Communications Limited, publishers of Complete Sports newspaper and Complete Football magazine as a reporter and later script writer for the Complete Sports studio.
He worked there for 13 years until October 2017.
Okosi also worked various times as Correspondent, Content creator and Editor at Sports Market International Magazine, Opera News, All Nigeria Soccer Media and Iconic Media Watch.
He also undertook freelance writing gigs for some local and international organizations.
Okosi is a member of the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Association of Movie Producers (AMP), Association of Voiceover Artistes of Nigeria (AVOA), Sports Writers Association of Nigeria (SWAN) and Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ).
He has been part of cast in some Nollywood movies and radio dramas including Blood Money 2, Scores To Settle, Dead End 2, Another Campus Tale and Battle Line.
Aside mainstream media and the entertainment industry, he has interests in scouting/unearthing of talents in the sports and creative sectors, exports business and property development.
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