It is the second time that Barcelona have tried to sign right-back João Cancelo. The first, in January, could not be. In fact, there was no negotiation with Manchester City. Yes, an exchange of unfriendly statements between Xavi and Guardiola that seems to be history. This time Barça is closer to being able to seal the arrival of the 29-year-old player to cover the ever-present right side. The agreement must be closed this week and today Thursday will be the key day in the negotiations, which are in the final stretch. If nothing goes wrong, as sources from the Barcelona club point out to this newspaper, the player will arrive on loan until the end of the season with a purchase option that ranges between 25 and 30 million and that will become mandatory if Barcelona fulfills a series of variables, such as passing the group stage of the Champions League. Barcelona and Manchester City will share the payment of the player’s fee, but Barça will take the majority of it.
Xavi learned all the details of the operation yesterday afternoon. After a day of celebration, the coach went to the sports city to lead the training session with all the players except Araújo and Íñigo Martínez, who were injured. Precisely the latter is one of the players who are pending registration, in addition to Marcos Alonso and the goalkeeper Iñaki Peña. It is expected that this week all three can be registered in LaLiga before the match that Barcelona will play against Villarreal on Sunday at the Ceràmica stadium (5.30 p.m.). To achieve this, Barcelona is waiting to enter this week 20 million euros of the leverage that it closed with the German fund Libero Football Finance AG, which, together with private investment advisers from NIPA Capital B.V., is have become new partners of the Barça Vision platform after buying 29.5% of its shares for 120 million euros.
The three parties agreed that Barcelona would enter this figure in installments. When the deal was closed, the sale of 5% of the shares was executed in exchange for 20 million euros. This figure, as well as the departure of Ousmane Dembélé, which meant an income of 35.4 million, served to sign Gündogan, Ronald Araújo, Abde, Sergi Roberto and Oriol Romeu.
The Germans will disburse the remaining 40 million until reaching 16% of the shares (8% of the 24.5% of Orpheus Media and 8% of the 24.5% of Socios.com), which allow Barcelona to increase his income in two installments of 20 million, in the next nine days, before the summer signing market closes. 20 million are for the pending registrations of Marcos Alonso, Iñigo Martínez and Iñaki Peña, and the remaining 20 for Cancelo. Unless there is another departure in the attacking ranks of Barcelona, ??Barça will not sign any striker to replace Dembélé. Ferran Torres continues to train in double sessions in the sports city ready to offer his best version. Top scorer of the pre-season, he also scored against Cadiz. For his part, Ansu Fati’s father met with Jorge Mendes on Tuesday in Lisbon. The plan remains almost the same because, although Ansu Fati wants to stay and Xavi counts as a shocker, the player wants to be more of a protagonist.
Everything points to Barça not signing any more midfielders either. This last vacancy will be filled by Fermín López, the 20-year-old subsidiary player who impressed during Barcelona’s tour of the United States and who has been entering League calls. Not like Clément Lenglet. The centre-back, who continues to press himself to find an exit, continues to not enter Xavi’s plans. He rejected a proposal from Saudi Arabia. Specifically Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr, which offered him a net salary of 10 million euros per season and Barcelona around 9 for the transfer. But Lenglet considers that it is not yet time to go to Arabia and continues to look for a European destination. However, no one is paying his salary, which this season represents a cost for Barcelona of more than 16 million euros.
