Manchester City’s Eric García and João Cancelo, and Barcelona’s Nélson Semedo are on the front page of Thursday’s edition of Sport.
Earlier reports from the Catalan press talked about a swap deal involving the two right-backs, and this was proposed by Jorge Mendes, who manages both the players.
The two clubs studied the idea, but eventually ‘chose to freeze’ the operation because of the difficulty reaching an agreement.
García, who joined the Citizens from the La Liga side in 2017, has been linked with a return to his former club.
He has a year left on his contract with Pep Guardiola’s side, and Barca’s intention is to either sign him this summer or take the centre-back on a free transfer in 2021.
According to the report, the Blaugrana are not in a position to ‘pay too much money’ to City to take García in the coming months. Therefore, the option of a three-way swap deal involving the Spaniard and the Portuguese duo emerged.
It’s claimed that Barca have already held talks with Mendes to figure out if the two clubs can agree an operation without money being involved.
The Catalan club are of the belief Semedo’s valuation is higher than that of Cancelo, and their idea is to send the former to the Etihad, and have his compatriot and García in return.
Sport say the three-way exchange operation will be studied in detail in the coming weeks.
Manchester City and Barca are still in the Champions League and they don’t want any negotiations to have an impact on the trio’s performances in the European competition.
Quique Setién’s side are interested in García and are of the belief he would be open to the idea of re-joining them. In addition to this, the club’s technical leaders consider the Spaniard a ‘great market opportunity’.
It’s unlikely that City would be interested in any sort of an exchange deal involving García, especially given Guardiola has expressed his desire to retain his compatriot.
