La Liga | Declare war on Barcelona! Ter Stegen refuses to submit a medical report just to prevent Garcia from registering?

On August 5, according to the front page of the Spanish media "World Sports" today, Barcelona goalkeeper Ter Stegen refused to authorize the club to submit his medical report to the La Liga Medical Committee. Barcelona Chairman Laporta was very angry about this, and Barcelona was preparing to initiate a disciplinary decision on the "Little Lion".

Telstegen suffered a ruptured patellar tendon in his right knee last season. He rested for a full 8 months and did not recover until the end of last season. However, Ter Stegen underwent lumbar surgery in France at the end of last month due to waist problems. He is expected to miss 3-4 months before he can fully recover. This is also the fourth major operation in his career. Because Ter Stegen needs to recover from his injuries for a long time, the Barcelona management hopes to use 80% of his salary to complete the registration of new goalkeeper Joan Garcia.

According to La Liga rules, if a player is injured for more than 4 months, he can release his salary quota, and Ter Stegen unilaterally announced on social media that he only needs to be injured for 3 months, deliberately avoiding the 4-month threshold of "long-term injury special case" in La Liga. But the Barcelona medical team evaluated that Ter Stegen would need to be on standby for 4-5 months, and Te Lion's statement prevented Barcelona from triggering this clause, which directly blocked Barcelona from using its capita space to register new goalkeeper Joan Garcia. Due to the differences in the recovery cycle between Ter Stegen and the Barcelona medical team, he himself refused to sign the authorization letter of medical report, which made the club unable to submit proof to La Liga.

Telstegen is 33 years old and joined Barcelona from Borussia Mönchengladbach in the summer of 2014. As of 2025, he has played for the team for 11 seasons. During this period, he made a total of 422 appearances in various competitions, completed 175 clean sheets, and helped the team win 19 important honors including 6 La Liga championships and 1 Champions League. After being injured last season, Barcelona signed Szczesni, who had just retired, and Szczesni became Barcelona's first goalkeeper with his outstanding performance. After Ter Stegen came back, he was clearly told that he would start the new season from the substitute goalkeeper, and the club activated the penalty to sign Joan Garcia this summer, completely blocking his possibility of returning to the main force.

This summer, Barcelona signed Szczesni, Rashford, Joan Garcia and Badji respectively. The Barcelona management does not expect other important signings this summer, so their focus is on player registration work. La Liga will officially start on August 16. In order to avoid the recurrence of the registration issues similar to last season's Olmo, Barcelona hopes to complete all new players registrations before the start of the new season. New players such as Joan Garcia and Rashford were unable to register due to insufficient salary space. It just so happened that Ter Stegen's injury met the injury rules of La Liga players, so Barcelona hopes to complete the registration of new players with the help of Ter Stegen's injury this time.

Telstegen, as the team captain, has three years left for the contract with Barcelona. The team originally planned to send Telstegen away or cut their salary this summer, but they were rejected by themselves. Barcelona tried to force it to leave the team by putting pressure, and the players used medical reports as bargaining chips to counter the trust between the two sides completely collapsed.

Barcelona believes that Ter Stegen's behavior will cause damage to the club and his teammates, and has initiated a disciplinary investigation on the players. If the disciplinary punishment escalates, it may evolve into labor arbitration or contract termination lawsuits, but the matter has not developed to an irreconcilable level. Teshi has the right to protect medical privacy, but Barcelona can claim a contract breach, and the result depends on the interpretation of La Liga labor and capital clauses. However, Barcelona expressed their hope to meet with the players, hoping that the two sides can resolve their differences and reach a settlement.

Barcelona currently only has one healthy goalkeeper, and the registrations of Sczesni and Garcia are pending. If Ter Stegen insists on refusing to authorize Barcelona to submit his medical report to the La Liga Medical Committee, even if he returns to the team due to injury, he may face the possibility of suspension of training and ban on the team. As the 2026 World Cup approaches, Ter Stegen's national team position is also threatened, so he needs to consider whether he should stick to his attitude. Ter Stegen's "Medical Reporting War" is not only a personal struggle, but also a blatant challenge to Barcelona's management strategy. Regardless of the ending, Barcelona's summer window plan and locker room stability have suffered a heavy blow, and Teliu's career is also at a crossroads.