Barcelona has never met a transfer it couldn’t complicate. The club’s latest financial tightrope act involves potentially shipping out one of its most promising young midfielders to secure a defender it already has on loan.
Marc Casadó, the 22-year-old midfielder who broke into Barcelona’s first team in 2024, is reportedly being floated as a makeweight in negotiations to permanently sign João Cancelo from Saudi Pro League side Al Hilal. The Portuguese full-back has been on loan at Camp Nou since January 2026, and Barcelona wants to keep him, just not at Al Hilal’s asking price of around €15 million.
The deal structure taking shape
Cancelo originally moved to Al Hilal from Manchester City for approximately $30 million in 2024. He then joined Barcelona on loan in January 2026, notably without a purchase option baked into the agreement. That absence of a pre-agreed fee means both clubs are now negotiating from scratch, and Al Hilal holds the leverage.
For Barcelona, packaging Casadó into the transfer would effectively reduce the cash outlay needed to complete Cancelo’s signing. It’s a classic swap-plus-fee structure, the kind of deal that European clubs have leaned on increasingly as transfer fees continue to inflate beyond what balance sheets can comfortably absorb.
