By FIFA order, Barcelona Sporting Club must pay Torque from Uruguay a sum of $1,150,000 plus 1% monthly interest since February 2019 and $172,000 fine for the transfer of Jonatan Álvez to Junior de Barranquilla (Colombia) in January 2018.
The resolution is stated in a ten-page document signed by the sole judge of the FIFA Players' Status Committee, Emilio García Silvero, which stipulates that the payment must be made within 30 days. However, according to the same document, the resolution can be appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
The millionaire base value corresponds to an unpaid amount for the sale of the forward Álvez to Junior. Torque - officially Montevideo City Torque since this year, due to the purchase by City Football Group - retained 50% of the economic rights of the Uruguayan striker when the canary club transferred him for $2.6 million two years ago. Since then, Barcelona - which had José Francisco Cevallos as president until 2019 - has not paid the entire debt, which is recorded in the institution's debt report prepared by the auditing firm PKF as of September 30, 2019.
FIFA also charges Barcelona $20,000 for "procedural costs" due to this ruling.
Lawsuit against Junior and 'problem to face'
As explained to this newspaper on Tuesday by an anonymous source, "Barcelona sued Junior for $650,000 plus interest and other related expenses." The Colombian club did not pay the Guayaquil team the full transfer fee for Álvez.
And when asked about how Junior's non-payment affects Barcelona's ability to fulfill its commitment, the source considered: "It should have been paid at the time (to Torque, in 2018), as soon as the player was sold (to Junior), the issue with Torque should have been settled. It was never settled and today we have this problem, which must be faced, there is no other choice."
Álvez, a 32-year-old footballer, is in his second stint with Barcelona. Coming from Liga de Quito, he joined the canary team in 2016, the year they won the national championship, and stayed until 2017, a campaign in which he was determinant towards the Copa Libertadores semifinals. Without success in other lands afterwards, he returned to Guayaquil in July 2019. (D)