Barcelona to lowball Man City for €30m star

Stuart Telford

• 24 Mar 2024 11:23 GMT
• 3 min read

Barcelona want to make Joao Cancelo's loan deal permanent at the end of the season, and think they can do so for less than half of Manchester City's asking price in January.

Cancelo fell out with Pep Guardiola in January 2023 when the coach switched to using defensive full-backs, and spent the second half of that season on loan at Bayern Munich.

But the German champions baulked at making his stay permanent for €70 million, and he joined Barcelona on similar terms at the start of the current campaign. A year on, his asking had dropped to €65m, but still no transfer was completed.

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But it now appears that City have slashed the amount they would accept for Cancelo once again - music to the ears of Barca, who remain more than €1 billion in debt.

Cut price Cancelo

"Manchester City are ready offload Joao Cancelo to Barcelona for a cut-price fee worth £24.3million [€28.2m]," reports Nathan Ridley for The Sunday Mirror. "… City had been demanding around £55m [€63.8m] for the Portuguese full-back following a fallout with boss Pep Guardiola in January."

Cancelo is now valued at €32.9m by FootballTransfers' in-house algorithm and had a highest ETV of €74.3m at the height of his Man City career two seasons ago.

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It could prove a snip for Barca, who's president Joan Laporta is confident of completing a deal for Cancelo, and indeed his Portugal teammate Joao Felix, who is on loan from Atletico Madrid.

"I think they'll continue," he told Mundo Deportivo. "I hope Atletico Madrid won't have any objection to Joao Felix continuing with us and I think that City won't object either. A lot will depend on the amounts, whether we're going to sign them [permanently] or extend the loan…"