Barca News
FC Barcelona sees Ilkay Gündogan (32 years old) closer to giving his OK to sign for the Barça club. The German midfielder, who ends his contract with Manchester City on June 30, had asked the Barça club for more time last Tuesday to give his final answer.
This caused certain doubts in the Barcelona entity, which wanted to close the arrival of him just after the Champions League final and to which the request for a temporary extension by its objective left something out of place.
Gundogan’s agent finally summoned his Barça interlocutors to tell them something at the end of last week or at the beginning of the one that begins today. During the day of yesterday, the representative sent several messages to the executives culés in the line of which he was close to saying ‘yes’ to the offer blaugrana.
Now, what is expected is that his definitive answer will not take too long and that planning can begin with the certainty that the German international will be able to be available to Xavi Hernández.
FC Barcelona wants to hire Gündogan given his great quality and his status as a free agent. Mateu Alemany led the negotiations with his representative and Xavi was in charge of speaking with the footballer to try to convince him to enroll in his project when he finished his contract with Manchester City.
Gundogan was convinced after speaking directly with the Barca coach and gave his OK to an agreement for three seasons as a free contract player but verbally.
The definitive agreement between his representative and the executives of the Barça sports area had yet to be confirmed.
However, given the enormous season that the German international has had with Manchester City , sealed with the Premier League-FA Cup-Champions League treble, the English club intensified its pressure to obtain its renewal. Given his age – he will be 33 in October, they offered him only one year and in recent weeks they raised their ante.
At the same time, Arsenal also approached Ilkay Gündogan, offering him to lead a project with the incentive to continue in the Premier League but in the city of London and in a great club that has started a promising project led by coach Mikel Arteta.
A great offer from Saudi Arabia even appeared to tempt the German midfielder, specifically from Al Ittihad. As in all these cases, the Saudi proposal was economically superior to all the others received by the Manchester City player.
In this scenario, last Tuesday the player, through his agent, asked Barça for more time to give an answer. This final response has not yet been produced but the ‘inputs’ that arrived yesterday from the German midfielder make the negotiators of the Barcelona club optimistic.
Source: Mundo Deportivo
