Barcelona says it missed out on Araujo signing by 18 seconds

Comment this story

Comment

BARCELONA, Spain — Barcelona missed out on signing Mexican right-back Julián Araujo because he was 18 seconds late in handing over his transfer documentation.

Barcelona director of football Mateu Alemany said on Wednesday that a “system error” caused the club to miss the midnight deadline at the end of the transfer window on Tuesday.

Alemany said the club are talking to FIFA to see if the transfer can still be completed.

Araujo, 21, was born in the United States and would transfer from Los Angeles Galaxy to Major League Soccer.

Alemany said the club plan to bring in Araujo to be used in Barcelona’s ‘B’ team initially.

Still struggling to comply with the Spanish league’s strict financial fair play rules, Barcelona made no additions to their squad in the transfer window, but they were able to give young star Gavi a contract with the first team.

The Catalan club have cleared some salary cap margin with the retirement of veteran defender Gerard Pique and the departures of striker Memphis Depay to Atletico Madrid and defender Héctor Bellerín to Sporting Lisbon.

“The three departures brought us significant economic savings,” Alemany told Movistar.

More AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports