Barcelona plan new deals for Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic

Barcelona president Josep Maria Bartomeu has revealed that the club will be holding talks with Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez and Ivan Rakitic in the coming months to commit their long-term future to the Nou Camp with new deals. But he refused to confirm the signing of Paco Alcacer from Valencia despite reports in Spain claiming his transfer was all but done, with Munir El Haddadi expected to move in the opposite direction to Mestalla.

The Catalans recently renewed the long-term contracts of two key players; Sergio Busquets and Neymar following months of intensive negotiations. Bartomeu hopes Messi, Suarez and Rakitic will follow suit in the coming months.

Questioned during an interview with Catalunya Radio whether Barcelona will also offer a new deal to manager Luis Enrique in the short-term, he replied: "I already said a few weeks ago that Luis Enrique doesn't' want to talk about it now but after Christmas we also should talk about it. Now we have to focus on La Liga.

"Regarding the renewal of players. We must talk about new deals of Messi but also other players like Luis Suarez, who is a very important player for us, and Rakitic. The important thing is that the current squad is competitive."

Barcelona want to fight for all the titles in the current 2016-2017 campaign but are also planning ahead for the future. The club has broken the bank during the current transfer window to bolster the squad with a number of promising players like Denis Suarez, Samuel Umtiti, Lucas Digne and Andre Gomes despite declaring they only had €60m to spend.

"We have made a gamble for young players, with an average of 22-years-old. I already said that we could use some of next year's budget to strengthen our squad right now," Bartomeu explained. "We said that we would strengthen where we needed to. We have brought forward funds for investment from future years because we were able to."

Paco Alcacer, who is also only 23-years-old, is expected to complete a summer overhaul after the Spanish international underwent his medical with Barcelona on Monday (29 August) ahead of completing a €30m plus-add-ons move to the Nou Camp. Bartomeu, however, refused to confirm his arrival as the club is yet to make the deal official.

"There are still a few matters that are being discussed," the president said, despite the Barcelona website accidentally publishing a photo of the Valencia striker on Monday, only to delete it minutes later.

Alcacer's arrival at Nou Camp will mean the departure of Munir to Valencia. Reports in Spain have claimed that the Barcelona starlet has already passed his medical at Mestalla ahead of competing a loan move, with Los Che keeping an option to buy him at the end of the campaign for around €12m.

Bartomeu would not confirm Munir's exit, but suggested that the promising striker could eventually follow the same trajectory as Denis Suarez, who has returned to Barcelona following his last successful season at Villarreal.

"When Denis Suarez returned I said that he could be an example for other jump players. The step from the B team to the first team is difficult. I remember that Xavi (Hernandez) and (Andres) Iniesta also struggled to make the breakthrough into the first team. So this idea is to send the players out on loan and get them back stronger. We have also done that with (Sergi) Samper (who has been loaned to Granada)."