As Barcelona continue to work to strengthen their squad for the next season, one of the players who has been linked with Barcelona in the last few weeks is Xavi Simons. The Catalans can reincorporate the La Masia-trained midfielder if they can get him on loan this summer.
However, Paris Saint Germain, the current owners of the Dutch midfielder, are not too keen to send him on a loan and are even less likely to agree to undertake such an operation with Barcelona.
Thus, as SPORT has noted, this matter can become the latest point of contention between the two clubs, who have already been engaged in several transfer battles in the last few years.
The first time that the two clubs faced off against each other was in 2013 when the Catalans sought the services of the Brazilian defender Thiago Silva. Barcelona reached an agreement with the defender at that time, but PSG simply refused to let him leave for the Blaugrana club, either that year or in the ensuing years.
There was a similar case with Marquinhos, another Brazilian defender that Barcelona wanted in their backline. He also agreed to join the Catalan club in 2016, but PSG again vetoed such a move.
Then in 2017, Barcelona believed they had found the successor to Xavi Hernandez in Marco Verratti, with Xavi himself admitting that looks most like him, but were again unable to sign their preferred target because of PSG’s reluctance to allow any of their players to join the Catalan club.
After Verratti, Barcelona wanted to acquire the services of the French midfielder Adrien Rabiot, whose contract was ending in the summer of 2019. However, PSG opted to lose him for free instead of allowing him to join Barcelona for €10 million, and the Catalans signed Frenkie de Jong at that time.
On the other hand, up to four Barcelona players have successfully left the Catalan club to join the Parisians. The first one was Neymar, whose signing came as a retaliation from the Parisians, for Barcelona’s pursuit of Verratti, as the Qatar-owned club paid his €222 million release clause to make him their flagship player.
Dani Alves also joined the Parisian club in the same year, 2017. After him, the biggest Barcelona legend, Lionel Messi, ended his 17 years at the club to join PSG as a free agent.
The last Barcelona player to join the Parisians was Ousmane Dembele, for whom the French side paid €50 million, but only €35.4 million of these ended up in the Catalan club’s coffers.
For now, there is a lot of uncertainty about Simons’ future, and some reports even suggested that PSG would not resist if he wanted to rejoin Barcelona. But it remains to be seen how this matter develops in the coming weeks, especially keeping in view the history between the two clubs.
