Barcelona’s Javier Mascherano charged with tax fraud by Spanish authorities
Barcelona’s Argentina international Javier Mascherano has been charged with two counts of defrauding the Spanish tax authorities of a total of more than £1.1m, the public prosecutor said. Mascherano, who joined Barça from Liverpool in August 2010, is alleged to have sought to conceal earnings from his image rights by using companies set up in the United States and Portugal, the prosecutor’s office said.
How Lionel Messi will recover from knee injury
Leo Messi has seven or eight weeks of intense work ahead of him to complete the recovery process for his injured left knee. The Argentine striker began his rehabilitation on Sunday, although during the first few days his priority will be to rest and not make any efforts that might worsen the partially torn medial collateral ligament he suffered last Saturday.
Barca clash with Leverkusen will test how they are coping without Messi
They say that necessity is the mother of invention. Just how inventive Luis Enrique really is, we will find out over the coming weeks. The constraints of the FIFA transfer ban ensured Barcelona were always going to have a tricky time in the first half of this season should injuries occur, but the quality of the players who have been hit in the current wave of physical problems means it poses a particularly big challenge.
Sergio Busquets is wasted as an interior
Luis Enrique put out a team against Las Palmas thinking of a week which has three games, two of which are very demanding: Bayer Leverkusen on Tuesday, and in the Pizjuán, Sevilla, next Saturday. With regards to midfielders, Rafinha is knocked out of action and Sergi Roberto has established himself as an excellent right back, so the choices of Luis Enrique are passing up Barça B players or rotate, as he did, leaving Iniesta on the bench and placing Mascherano in the middle, Rakitic on the right and Sergio Busquets on the left.
FIFA force Spanish Federation into blocking Arda Turan registration
FIFA has expressively prohibited the Spanish Football Federation to block the registration of new Barcelona signing Arda Turan. The Catalan club made an official request last week to both organizations in an attempt to register the Turkish midfielder to replace injured Blaugrana Rafinha Alcântara, but now there is confirmation that the attempts have failed.
The 78 percent turnout was a record for a regional vote in Catalonia. Despite the victory of parliamentary majority, the separatists got 47.8 percent of the votes cast: “What is important is that the people could vote, not whether Barcelona can or cannot remain in La Liga. People vote for personal and economic reasons — because they want to change their situation,” Guardiola said during Monday’s news conference.
