Barcelona president gives his take on Real Madrid signing Mbappe

Speaking in an interview on Barça One, Barcelona president Joan Laporta has given his take on their arch-rivals Real Madrid signing Kylian Mbappe.

The past few days have been hard for Barça fans as they had to first see Real Madrid lift the UEFA Champions League by beating Borussia Dortmund in the finals on Saturday night.

Later, on Sunday, the Catalans’ basketball team ended up losing to Real Madrid 92-95. And yesterday, Los Blancos announced the signing of one of the best players in the world in Kylian Mbappe.

And Laporta acknowledged that it has not been easy to see Real Madrid’s success in the last few days, but as far as Mbappe is concerned, he prefers Barcelona’s way of building a team with homegrown talents.

“As a Culé, it is not good news. We wanted to win the Champions League, to reach the final in basketball, but regarding Mbappé I like our sporting philosophy of forming a team with homegrown players,” said Laporta.

“I respect what our rivals do, but I’m sticking with our philosophy,” he added.

On Barcelona’s situation

Barcelona are not in a position to make big signings owing to their financial situation and Laporta likened the circumstances to a journey through a desert and insisted that the hard times will pass.

“We are on a journey through the desert and I said it would not be an easy road, the love of the members and fans during this time has a lot of merit, but we are about to have positive economic results and to have the 1-1 to be able to go to the market,” he said.

On the possibility of returning to the 1-1 rule, Laporta added: “We have reduced the debt in the order of €200 million, we are on the verge of achieving sporting economic results and the 1-1 management will make things easier for us.”