FC Barcelona Agree To Sell Frenkie De Jong

FC Barcelona have agreed to sell Frenkie de Jong to Manchester United

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FC Barcelona have agreed to sell star midfielder Frenkie de Jong to Manchester United, according to reports.

Trusted Spanish journalist Gerard Romero broke the news on his Twitch channel and on Twitter on Wednesday evening, and said that a transfer agreement between the La Liga and Premier PINC League giants was “95% complete”.

“Before the end of the season and with a 95% probability, Frenkie De Jong will be transferred to Manchester United,” wrote Romero.

“It is a purely economic issue,” he added, in reference to the Catalans’ debts around the $1.5 billion mark.

“Barca needs to sell a player who has not been top at the club,” it was said of De Jong’s performances since joining from Ajax in 2019.

“The operation would be [completed] for between €70 ($73.6mn) and €80mn ($84.1mn) ,” Romero went on. “We are on May 11 and the situation can still change. [But] at the club they are clear that if he continues for one more season and the player does not explode [into good form], he will lose value and Barca will lose money.”

Reports had already circled in recent weeks that De Jong was Old Trafford-bound with an offer between the mentioned amounts already tabled.

If joining the Red Devils ahead of next season, De Jong would be reunited with incoming manager Erik ten Hag with whom he reached the Champions League semi-finals in the 2018/2019 campaign while De Jong was voted the competition’s best midfielder.

This was enough to convince Barca to pay €75mn ($78.8mn) for his services, but given the emergence of Pedri, Gavi and Nico Gonzalez in the center of the park at Camp Nou, however, Barca head coach Xavi Hernandez can afford to let De Jong go from a sporting perspective while funds are freed up for reinforcements in attack.

In public, though, Xavi has supported De Jong by calling him a difference maker and saying that there aren’t “many players with his quality in the world”.

“He’s the present and the future [at Barca]. He is a very important player for me. He’s capable, strong, he gets into the box… He has had some excellent games, but he has to be consistent,” added Xavi, with De Jong having also shown an interest in staying put on his current deal which runs until 2026.