South America is one of the favorite talent recruitment grounds of FC Barcelona, and some of their biggest legends have hailed from this continent. As a result, the club is always alert to any talents rising to prominence from this part of the world.
To ensure that they do not miss out on any such talent, Barcelona have established an effective relationship with clubs across South America, with Santos being one of the most prominent of these clubs.
As reported by SPORT, FC Barcelona currently have a right of first refusal over one of Santos’ players, the 18-year-old winger Angelo Gabriel. However, the Catalan club does not intend to exercise this right now, and the winger is expected to join a Premier League side instead.
Barcelona were interested in the player in January when he was close to Nottingham Forest. Now, the best-placed side to get him is the London-based club Chelsea, who can pay around €15 million for the player, and then let him join another associated club to allow the player to keep on growing.
This right of first refusal for Angelo originated at the beginning of 2022 when FC Barcelona agreed with Santos for two of their highly promising players, Angelo and Kayky. If not for the problems with FFP, Barcelona would likely have got at least one of these players for their B team.
As things stand, Santos now are €3 million in debt to the Catalan club, as Barcelona still are entitled to receive this sum from the Brazilian club for Neymar’s transfer. Before this, Barcelona also had the right of first refusal over another Santos player, Gabigol. However, the Brazilian club did not notify the Catalans when the player was sold to Inter Milan in 2016.
Barcelona went to FIFA and TAS then, and these bodies agreed with the Cules’ case. Now the Brazilian club will be looking to arrive at another formula for the settlement of this €3 million in order to avoid a complaint by Barcelona to FIFA, which can potentially result in a transfer ban for Santos.
