MADRID: Barcelona are confident they will have satisfied the Spanish league financial fair play rules so their new signings can play in the first round of the new LaLiga season this weekend.

The cash-crisis Catalans have registered four of their new signings in time after securing promises of new funding, mostly by selling media rights.

The four cleared to play Rayo Vallecano are Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen, Robert Lewandowski and Raphinha can face Rayo Vallecano. But the club are still waiting on France defender Jules Kounde.

The restriction also applied to players who have renewed their contracts this summer, namely Ousmane Dembele and Sergi Roberto, but both have also been registered.

In order for Kounde to be registered, Barcelona will need to free up ‘salary mass’.

On Friday, they sold an additional 24.5% of Barca Studios to Orpheus Media for 100m euros (£84.6m), which was expected to generate even revenue to satisfy La Liga and allow Barca to register at least some of their new players.

Speaking at his media conference at 17:00 BST on Friday, coach Xavi said Barca were “still working on it”, and had until two hours before kick-off for the registrations to be confirmed.

Xavi added: “We still have up to two hours before kick-off. The club is doing a tremendous effort. I’m very happy and excited with the new signings and the team we have built.

“We’re now ready to compete but, in terms of registrations, we have until tomorrow and right now we are optimistic.”

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