FC Barcelona have reportedly agreed terms over a transfer of Ferran Torres to Paris Saint-Germain. The FIFA World Cup hero will join the Parisian club for a fee of €50 million.
It’s a decent bit of money for a player who has been primarily a backup and is in the last year of his deal with Barça. It’s also good on the balance sheet as they sell a player who has already been mostly amortized over time, while the income can be accounted for all at once.
That helps when Barcelona are haggling over price with Manchester City for Rodri, another World Cup hero into the last year of his deal. City expect a good bit of money for one of the best midfielders in the world. The cash injection from the Torres sale gives Barça more breathing room to get the deal over the line.
However, the sale also makes a tricky situation into an emergency. Already without Robert Lewandowski, who left to join Chicago Fire, Barça were scouring the market for a new striker. It’s no secret they want Julián Alvarez, but Atlético de Madrid have not shown any signs they were willing to sell. Barcelona have looked at other options, but they have not found a plan B that is both elite and a reasonable price.
If Torres is sold, they won’t have either striker option they had last season. You go from two strikers, to zero. At that point, Barça need to sign at least one, but possibly two, forwards. There are a little over two weeks left in the transfer window.
Reports say that Barcelona are giving the Alvarez transfer until the end of next week to come to fruition. Otherwise, they’ll throw in the towel, at least for this window. However, chances are that Atlético will not budge. In that event. Barcelona will have to look at alternatives and get a deal done with another team for another striker quickly. In an ideal world, they may want to do that twice after the Torres sale leaves the striker department bare.