Barcelona president Joan Laporta calls for stricter rules on state-owned clubs

State-owned clubs are causing “instability” in football and should be subject to stricter rules, Joan Laporta, the president of Barcelona, has said.

Laporta revealed he was lobbying Uefa to at least harmonise rules over club ownership across Europe because state-owned clubs, such as Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, are “not using the same tools” to compete.

“The state clubs are a problem because they provoke an instability of our sport, of football in Europe,” he said. “I’m asking for rules that have to be more strict for these kinds of clubs because the resources they are using in football doesn’t come from the football industry.

“In our case, and most of the clubs in Europe, the resources that we are generating come from the industry of sports … and these state clubs are not using the same tools in order to compete. It is complicated to compete with these clubs that have a lot of big players spread around the world. And when you go to the market to buy players, it’s difficult to compete.

“I ask the regulators like Uefa and leagues of each country to be stricter, or at least harmonise all the rules. Because, for instance, in Spain we have rules much more strict than in France or the Premier League.”

Laporta was speaking at the launch of a new partnership between Barcelona and UNHCR, the UN refugee agency. Under the agreement, the UNHCR logo will appear on the shirts of Barcelona’s men’s and women’s teams for the next four seasons. The club will also work with the agency on funding football projects for refugees in Colombia, Uganda, Turkey and Malaysia.

Spanish financial controls are structured in such a way that clubs must lay out their spending in advance, with controls set by authorities at La Liga. There are