Barcelona confirm Kessie and Christensen transfer deals are done

Robin Bairner

• Updated: 28 Mar 2022 22:56 BST
• 3 min read

Barcelona president Joan Laporta has confirmed that the club will sign Franck Kessie from Milan and Andreas Christensen from Chelsea in the summer transfer window.

Barca are attempting to act quickly to get their squad together for the 2022/23 campaign and will add both Kessie and Christensen to their ranks as free agents, with their contracts up at their respective sides.

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With the club under severe financial pressure, the Catalans are having to put a good deal of work into attracting free players so as to concentrate on a handful of high-profile traditional deals.

Laporta effectively confirmed these transfers were done as he told RAC1: “We have signed a midfielder and a defender.”

Laporta on Barcelona contracts

While Barcelona are set to sign two free agents, they could also lose one of their own players to the same fate.

Sergi Roberto’s deal is up at the end of the season, and while the versatile defender was poised to sign a new contract, it has never been done. It now seems that he is destined to depart.

“Sergi Roberto had the opportunity to renew at the beginning of the season but I don’t understand why he didn’t do it,” Laporta said.

Meanwhile, he passed comment on deals in the pipeline that should see starlets Gavi and Ronald Araujo commit their futures to the club.

“The renewals of those players are on the right track,” he said.

Araujo is out of contract with Barca at the end of the season and has been linked with a string of clubs, while Gavi has a release clause set at a worrying low €50 million, making him vulnerable to interest from elsewhere. Liverpool and Chelsea have both been linked with the teenage Spain international, who has been a revelation this season.

Barcelona will be eager to get both deals over the line, and despite Laporta’s words, fans will remain jumpy until both contracts are signed as the president has been known to be bullish about such things in the past only for them to fall through, with the Sergi Roberto deal a prime example.