Barcelona remain confident they will still be able to sign players this summer as they prepare their appeal against the FIFA-imposed transfer ban.
Vice president Manel Arroyo confirmed the club were working on their appeal with the Spanish Football Federation.
The Spanish champions were hit with a year-long transfer ban for breaching FIFA’s rules on the transfer of players aged under 18. The club insists it has done nothing wrong.
Arroyo said: “We’re working on an appeal that will give us an interim suspension of the transfer ban.
“We want to have a normal summer. We’re convinced that we will be able to sign new players.
“It’s a significant ban and our legal team is working so that we’ll be able to sign new players this summer.”
Should Barcelona lose their initial appeal they have recourse to take their fight to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which would result in the transfer embargo being suspended until the final decision.
The appeal should allow the deals already agreed for Borussia Moenchengladbach keeper Marc-Andre ter Stergen and Croatian 17-year-old Alen Halilovic, who turns 18 in June, to go through.
The vice president also revealed Barca could make changes to their youth system in the coming seasons in the wake of the FIFA ruling.
“We’ll study the formats in which youth football currently works in order to improve the process,” he said.
“We constantly self-analyse. If there are any processes that take us to the brink of breaking any rule, we’ll revise it. There’s an ongoing internal investigation.”
