Deco will not join Barcelona on Asia tour as he aims to finalise player departures | OneFootball

After a chaotic 12 hours or so, it has been decided that FC Barcelona will indeed fly to Japan today to kickstart their pre-season tour of Asia.

The Catalans are scheduled to play Vissel Kobe in a friendly on Sunday, but on Wednesday, the club announced that the game had been suspended due to a breach of agreement from the promoter.

However, as reported earlier today, the issue has been resolved, and the team is all set to fly out to Japan later today.

Deco will not be on the flight

But, according to journalist Victor Navarro, Barcelona sporting director Deco will not travel with the first-team squad on their Asia tour.

Instead, the former midfielder will stay back in Barcelona and continue working on finalising player departures.

The Blaugrana need to free up some salary space in the coming weeks in order to be able to register their new signings before the start of the season. As such, parting ways with some of the players not in Hansi Flick’s plans becomes critical.

Pau Victor is set to leave Barcelona. (Photo by Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

Pau Victor, for one, appears set to depart imminently, with an agreement finalised for him to join SC Braga in Portugal.

Meanwhile, Barça are working to terminate the contract of out-of-favour midfielder Oriol Romeu, who is attracting interest from Valencia.

The futures of Inaki Pena and Marc-Andre ter Stegen also need to be resolved, although at the moment, it appears likely that the latter ends up staying after sustaining a back injury that will keep him out for an extended period.

Andreas Christensen is another player staring at an uncertain future, given the overbooking of central defenders in the Barcelona squad.

Deco will have his hands full to secure departures for some of these players while he and the sporting department will also try to find a way to bring in a new full-back if circumstances allow.