Joao Cancelo transfer to Barcelona gathering pace after World Cup exit

The Portuguese fullback Joao Cancelo is one of the players FC Barcelona want to bring to their team to bolster their backline this summer. The defender left the Blaugrana club at the end of the last season, as his half-season loan came to an end, but both the player and the club want to continue working together for the next season as well.

For this purpose, negotiations with Al-Hilal are underway for quite some time, and an agreement has not been yet been reached mainly because of the disagreement between the two clubs about the transfer fee.

However, in an update on this operation, SPORT claims that these negotiations are already very advanced, and would now progress at an even greater pace after Portugal’s elimination from the World Cup, which means Joao Cancelo can now begin his vacations.

The report has also provided some information about the contract the fullback is expected to sign. He will sign for two seasons, and his transfer fee would not go beyond €10 million in both fixed and variable fees. For now, only some tax related issues remain to be resolved in his contract, which have arisen as he did not pay any taxes in Saudi Arabia, but would have to pay those in Spain as he has already lived in the country for six months.

Owing to his relationship with Simone Inzaghi, a return to Al-Hilal was very complicated for Joao Cancelo, and his desired destination was also Barcelona. He has forgone a lot of money to be able to complete this move, and his arrival can also cause several other moves in the blaugrana backline. But once this operation is complete, the Catalans would have only one priority operation left in the summer market, i.e., of signing the forward Julian Alvarez from Atletico Madrid.