Los Angeles Galaxy's Julián Araujo finally completes move to Barcelona after transfer appeal approved by Court of Arbitration for Sport..

2023-02-18 09:47

Los Angeles Galaxy





Barcelona announced on its official website on Friday that the club has signed Mexico international right wing-back wonderkid Julián Araujo from the Los Angeles Galaxy.


According to Barcelona's official statement, Araujo has signed a long-term three-and-a-half-year deal with the club which runs until the summer of 2026, and he will also be arranged to join the Barcelona B team first.


After completing his joining procedures, Araujo did not forget to post a handwritten letter on his official Instagram account to say goodbye to the fans of his old club: "To my favorite Galaxy family, you accepted me with open arms and helped a boy from Lompoc achieve his dream of becoming a professional football player when I was 17 years-old. We played together and had four fantastic seasons that I will never forget."


"A huge thank you to the incredible fans who have supported me so passionately from my debut to my last game. To all my teammates, coaches and staff, it is a pleasure to represent this great club with all of you. I am very grateful to have the opportunity to develop from an academy player to a first-team player and to have the opportunity to play for one of the biggest clubs in the Major League Soccer (MLS)."


"Los Angeles Galaxy will always be a part of the story of my career and it's a great honour to share these experiences with you all. See you soon and hopefully we will see each other again. Love you Julián."


Araujo's completed transfer this time also means that the move which should have been completed on the night of the winter transfer window deadline day, but failed all due to a failure in the transfer file transmission system, which led to the transfer to Barcelona regretfully couldn't be finished in time before the transfer window closed was finally rectified.


At that time, Barcelona tried to appeal to FIFA, but the authorities insisted on rejecting the appeal of the Blaugrana because "it was not completed in accordance with the applicable regulations".


Subsequently, Barcelona appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, but unlike FIFA, the authorities chose to sympathize with Barcelona and then approved the transfer immediately.


Araujo, who is only 21 years old, was born on August 13, 2001 in Lompoc, Santa Barbara County, California, USA. He is 1.78 meters tall. He primarily plays as a right wing-back, but he can also be deployed as a right-winger. He has dual citizenship of the United States and Mexico.


Araujo got the opportunity to join the Los Angeles Galaxy youth academy when he was studying at the University of California in 2018. Later, in order to ensure that the club could sign him, the Los Angeles Galaxy even traded 5 draft picks to the 2018 MLS Draft along with $10,000 to the Colorado Rapids for Araujo.


Since joining, Araujo has played 111 times for Los Angeles Galaxy across all competitions, scoring 2 goals and assisting 14 times. He has been selected to the MLS All-Star team twice.


It is worth mentioning that Araujo once joined the La Liga giants' youth academy which was established in the United States when he was a child, and was even appointed as the captain of the Barcelona U17 youth academy team.