Athletic Club cracks down with Barça: they will not let Nico Williams go easily

The signing of Nico Williams by FC Barcelona is not going to be easy for the Blaugranes. The institutional relationship between FC Barcelona and Athletic Club is weak, tense, even bad, and the Basque club will do everything in their power to stop that deal from happening. In short, Barça needs to pay a release clause worth 62 million euros, and Athletic Club Bilbao will not make any concession to Barcelona: no payment in instalments, all at the same time.

And Athletic know that that poses a problem to FC Barcelona, always on thin ice regarding financial matters. Last season, they had trouble paying the salaries of two players, Dani Olmo and Pau Víctor, without breaking the financial fair play rules: only an extraordinary precautionary measure by the Spanish government allowed them to get away with it.

On Thursday, Athletic published a statement titled "Athletic Club Minds Its Own Business", referring to a meeting with LaLiga, including its president Javier Tebas, requested by the club: "Within the framework of financial fair play, among other issues, FC Barcelona's ability to sign players was discussed, given Athletic Club's legitimate interest in accessing the relevant information, after FC Barcelona's sporting director, Anderson Luis de Souza 'Deco', publicly acknowledged that they will try to sign a player from our first team."

The statement is not a denial for FC Barcelona to acquire their top player, but it's clear that they want to make things difficult for the Catalan club, and their desire is to keep the player until his current contract ends in June 2027.

If they can't stop him from leaving, they will leave no stone unturned to make sure Barça fulfils every legal obligation regarding financial fair play, the same rules that apply to every other club, without exception.

"Our job is to ensure that the competition rules are followed". And they already suspect that Barça, currently, has no ability to do so in a completely legal way: "The statements by Anderson Luis de Souza "Deco" follow the public statements made by FC Barcelona president Joan Laporta himself, admitting that the Blaugrana club "is working to comply with the 1:1 rule" and, therefore, is not currently within the parameters of said rule for registering players."