new contract

Thomas Vermaelen is officially a Barça player after signing a five year deal at the Club on Sunday morning. Vermaelen was accompanied at the signing by the Catalan club President Josep Maria Bartomeu and Sporting Vice-Oresident Jordi Mestre. The Belgian defender passed his medical on Saturday and was presented on the Camp Nou pitch on Sunday  morning, with a press conference. Speaking at his presentation, Vermaelen explained: "I feel ready to play here - I think I can offer a lot to this club". "It's up to me to show what I can do here", he added. The cost of the deal with Arsenal is €10 million, with a further €5 million in performance bonuses and €3.8 million if the team win the Champions League. The Belgian defender’s buyout clause is set at €80 million.

568,231 unemployed people were registered with the Catalan Public Employment Service (SOC) this July, 1,983 less than in June, which represents a 0.35% reduction. This is 42,198 less unemployed people than in July 2013, or a 6.91% annual reduction. All of the Catalan provinces have seen a drop in unemployment over the past month. In addition, there has been an increase of Catalans registering with Social Security, a 12% rise in hiring rate and nearly all sectors in Catalonia are creating new jobs. In Spain as a whole the number of people looking for work stands at 4,419,860 people, 281,478 fewer than the previous year, which represents a 5.94% annual drop. 

FC Barcelona and València CF have reached agreement for the transfer of the French player, Jérémy Mathieu. The French defender will sign a contract with FC Barcelona for the next four seasons, plus an optional season more. The cost of the transfer is €20 million and the buyout clause will be €50 million. Mathieu, born in 1983, is a physically imposing defender who can play in various positions at the back. Until recently, he was considered a natural left-back, but of late he has tended to feature more regularly in the centre of defence.

The FC Barcelona forward will join the Premier League's Stoke City side this summer. After spending nearly his entire footballing life at FC Barcelona, Bojan Krkic says goodbye to his club. The Catalan forward, who was always one step ahead of his age in terms of skill and quality, leaves FC Barcelona with the distinction of being the all-time highest scorer in the Barça youth system. His tally from all his years at La Masia exceeds the 400-goal mark. He also performed well when he shared the senior side dressing room with some of the best forwards on the planet. First he vied for a starting spot with Eto’o, and then with Ibrahimovic and Leo Messi. During his four seasons on FC Barcelona's first team (2007-2011), he scored a total of 26 goals. He was then loaned out to Roma, Milan and Ajax.

The Catalan Government, alongside the executives of the Basque Country and Castile and León, is leading the index of Autonomous Communities in terms of transparency, according to a study issued on Thursday by the organisation Transparency International Spain. These three Autonomies scored 100 out of 100 in the study, which was based on 80 indicators. They were followed by La Rioja (96), Galícia (94) and the Balearic Islands (93). The Region of Madrid occupies the last position in the ranking, with 65 points, behind the Region of Múrcia (79), the Canary Islands (80) and Castilla-La Mancha (84). The average across Spain is 88.6 out of 100. The study called upon regional governments to indicate the exact location of various data and information about elected officials, political appointments, organisation and personal wealth.

FC Barcelona and Sevilla FC have reached an agreement for the transfer of Ivan Rakitic. The Croatian midfielder will sign a contract with FC Barcelona for the next five seasons. Both clubs have also agreed for Barça B player Denis Suárez to be loaned to the Andalusian club for the next two seasons. 26-year-old Ivan Rakitic arrives at the Camp Nou after impressing for three seasons with Sevilla. He has done nothing but improve in his time at the Sánchez Pizjuán, becoming the team’s main central playmaker and captain, leading them to the Europa League title in the 2013/14 season. Rakitic is also one of the stars of the Croatian national team that is currently in Brazil playing at the World Cup.

The German goalkeeper acknowledges that this is a big step forward in his career, after impressing so much for Borussia in his home city of Mönchengladbach. On Thursday he appeared in his first press conference and started with an apology. “I don’t speak very good Spanish yet, let alone Catalan” he said. But judging by the surprisingly confident way that he delivered those words in Spanish, it won’t be long before he does. “It was an honour for me to receive such an offer from a team that has been so successful in recent years" he told the media. FC Barcelona Sporting Director, former goalkeeper Andoni Zubizarreta, described the German player as “fast, agile, strong in the air and good in the one-on-one”.

Piqué’s contract, which runs until the end of next season (30 June 2015), has been extended for four more seasons. The Catalan defender has played 266 games for FC Barcelona in 6 seasons. He has scored 20 goals and has won 16 titles so far. The new contract will keep Piqué at the Catalan club until the end of the 2018/19 season and will be signed within the next few days. After coming up through the academy system, Piqué spent three years with Manchester United and another season with Zaragoza before returning to Barça in 2008, coinciding with the start of the Guardiola era.

FC Barcelona has announced the signing of the keeper from Borussia Mönchengladbach, Marc-André Ter Stegen, and the departure of José Manuel Pinto after six and a half years of service to the team. In addition, youngsters Gerard Deulofeu and Rafinha Alcantára will be returning to the Club after a year out on loan at Everton and Celta Vigo respectively. The Catalan winger and the Brazilian born midfielder both came up through the Masia and they have put in impressive performances on loan this year. Ter Stegen is one of the new signings for the 2014/15 Barça squad, announced by Football Director Andoni Zubizarreta and FC Barcelona's Board of Directors. On top of this, they also confirmed that José Manuel Pinto will no longer defend Barça’s goal now that his contract has expired.

The FC Barcelona Board of Directors have this evening confirmed  Luis Enrique Martínez as the new first team coach, replacing Tata Martino and following a proposal from Sporting Director Andoni Zubizarreta. Luis Enrique, 44 , will sign a two year deal. The new manager will sign his contract at noon on Wednesday and hold a press conference at 1:00 PM CET in the Auditori 1899.This wil be Luis Enrique’s third spell at FC Barcelona, after having arrived in 1996 as Player and coming back in 2008 as the Barça B's coach.

FC Barcelona has responded positively to the decision announced on Wednesday by FIFA’s Appeal Committee to provisionally grant suspensive effect to the appeal made by the Catalan club against the sanction imposed by FIFA’s Disciplinary Commission. The sanction was announced by the FIFA Disciplinary Commission last April 2 and prevented FC Barcelona from signing players during the next two transfer windows. The Catalan club presented an appeal against the measure within the required period.

FC Barcelona President Josep Maria Bartomeu and Catalan defender Marc Bartra signed the deal in the club offices this Tuesday that will keep the centre-back at Barça till June 2017. The new deal includes a 25 million Euro get out clause.The 23-year-old Bartra joined FC Barcelona as an eleven-year-old and worked his way up through the academy and Barça B teams before signing a first team contract in the 2012/13 season.After putting pen to paper, the Catalan centre-back admitted: “I’m very happy. It’s a great feeling and I hope everything continues to go as well as they have done in my time at the club so far. For me, Piqué and Puyol are my reference points - it’s a challenge to me to achieve what they have . Establishing myself in the team is a big test, but I am getting there”

In February, 629,586 people were enrolled on the unemployment lists in Catalonia, representing a decrease of 4,285 unemployed people on the same month last year, according to figures released on Tuesday by the Spanish Employment and Social Security Ministry. It is also the sharpest decline for a month of February since 2004, when 5,138 fewer jobseekers were registered. With this latest drop in the unemployment figures, Catalonia has achieved eight consecutive months of registered unemployment reduction in annual terms. In the whole of Spain, unemployment stood at 4,812,486 people, down by 1,949 people in February. It is the first decrease for the month of February since the beginning of the crisis in 2007.

In annual terms, there were 27,946 less registered unemployed people in January 2014 than in January 2013, meaning a 4.22 % drop. Seven consecutive months of decreases in the registered unemployed figures had not been achieved since June 2007. Besides, in monthly terms, the latest figures also show a positive trend. Indeed, January is traditionally a month where unemployment increases, with the only drop recorded since 1997, the beginning of the series, dating back to January 1998. In January 2014, unemployment grew by 8,999 people compared to December 2013, the mildest increase registered in that month since 2007. Referring to these latest figures, the Catalan Deputy Minister for Employment stated that he was “moderately optimistic”.

Neymar’s father has authorised FC Barcelona to lift the confidentiality clauses in his son’s contract. The Catalan club has insisted that the transfer total was €57.1 million and detailed all the payments referring to the player’s salary and other agreements reached with organisations connected to him. Barça’s new President, Josep Maria Bartomeu, and Director of the Football Management Area, Raül Sanllehí, clarified a number of stories published in various Spanish newspapers and as an exception, revealed details of Neymar’s salary. “We have not lied. Football games are won on the pitch, not behind closed doors in offices”, said Bartomeu.