Barcelona have won a major battle in the war for Brazilian winger Raphinha.
Even though Leeds United and Chelsea have agreed a rough fee for the Brazilian, the Catalan club have convinced him to wait before accepting an offer, giving them more time to agree their own deal with Leeds.
That’s according to Marca, who say that it is unlikely that any deal will be made before the second ‘economic lever’ is activated. In this case a sale of a percentage of Barcelona Licensing and Merchandising will be crucial to any hope they have of making signings this summer.
Whether they can get to a similar figure as Chelsea’s €65m remains to be seen. Mundo Deportivo say that Barcelona made an official offer for Raphinha on Wednesday but that it was rejected out of hand for being too far from that of Chelsea.
All the while the minutes tick down on Ousmane Dembele’s deal with Barcelona. Both the Frenchman and Raphinha look more likely to be playing elsewhere and if Barcelona do want to strengthen the position, they may be forced to bargain for a different target.
At this point, it may be worth wondering if Barcelona would consider moving Ferran Torres to the right side of their attack and using Memphis Depay and Ansu Fati on the other side as their main options.
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