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Joan Laporta says Barcelona being linked with a move for Kylian Mbappe is “part of the show business of football” and vowed the club will not “lose our heads” in the transfer market.
Real Madrid are strong favourites to sign Mbappe when his Paris Saint-Germain contract expires at the end of the season.
Barca have reportedly emerged as contenders to lure the France striker to LaLiga in a move that would be hard to take for their fierce rivals.
But Blaugrana president Laporta brushed of talk of the Catalan giants landing the prolific 23-year-old as a free agent.
He told Mundo Deportivo: “I think this is part of the show business of football, I have nothing to say about it.”
Laporta added: “Here, everyone is free to launch messages and proclamations and we already know that this is part of the world of football, that the big clubs are interested in great players.
“But I’m not going to start, and you have to allow me not to, to talk about players because if I do, the only thing I can do is harm the interests of our club.
“If we talk about a player and we had the intention of signing him, we would increase the price. Neither with this player nor with others do I want to comment on issues because it would harm the interests of the club.
“The technical secretary and sports management are working to improve our squad, which is getting better and better, we are more and more satisfied.
“I want it to be clearly understood that we prioritise the team above all else, a team reinforced in each of its lines and what we do not participate in is raising players or looking for players who are more than the team.
“What we want to strengthen is the team we have that plays based on a genuine Barca system. The club thinks that this is what the football team needs, this genuine style that for me is the key to everything and is what we have to do, a team that can play this system with highly talented players.”
Barca lost Lionel Messi due to the club’s huge financial troubles and Laporta says there is no chance they will be reckless with recruitment.
He added: “I insist, I will not talk about specific players but I can tell you that we will not carry out any operation that puts the institution at risk.
“It has been a maxim that we have followed since I became president again, it happened to us in various circumstances and we are going to continue with this philosophy and this criterion, not to put the institution at risk with operations that we wouldn’t do, even if we were already healthy.
“So, you can talk about players, about big-money operations in which Barca is not going to lose its head. The partners are calm because we are not going to lose our heads for an operation of these magnitudes.
“Most of the players want to come to Barca, they like the club, the team, our philosophy, our way of working, our understanding football. And this is good, we are verifying it in many cases and daily.
“They will have to adapt to Barca’s salary levels and to an economic structure of the operation that maintains the sustainability and balance of the club.”
