Barcelona president Joan Laporta has claimed the club pulled out of the race to sign Turkish teenager Arda Guler after Real Madrid made the 18-year-old an enormous financial offer.
Guler's Fenerbahce contract had a €17.5m release clause and both Barcelona and Real Madrid were prepared to trigger it, and the Blaugrana even thought they had a deal wrapped up before Guler confirmed his decision to move to the Bernabeu instead.
Asked why Barcelona accepted defeat, Laporta insisted the La Liga champions are no longer prepared to pay over the odds for any player, having done so to a damaging extent under the previous president, Josep Maria Bartomeu.
"We have to apply common sense and we think that we should move away from this operation due to the magnitude of it," Laporta told SPORT.
"We had an agreement with the club for €17.5m. We also agreed with the player. Madrid has entered and considered that they had to pay the amounts that they have paid. We then thought that we did not have to continue. There are more players that I think we can get without entering this battle. We thought it would be a mistake on our part.
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"We could have come to compete [but]... we self-impose criteria that we are not going to transgress."
Laporta later confirmed that Barcelona's stance was designed to ensure they 'do not go back there', referring to the period of financial woes brought about under Bartomeu.
Barcelona are in the market for a number of reinforcements this summer and, when asked how they could spend the money initially set aside for Guler, Laporta confirmed that manager Xavi has made his demands perfectly clear.
"As the coach has requested, a right-back and two midfielders are missing," he explained.
"I don't think it's going to cost us much. In fact, there are several possibilities, several options. Xavi has told us that he can now compete but we do have to look for a player to occupy the place left by Busi [Sergio Busquets] and to be able to play in a two."
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This article was originally published on 90min as Arda Guler: Joan Laporta explains why Barcelona accepted defeat to Real Madrid.
