For a player who was seen more frequently on the squad list than on the pitch, that is very good money. Barcelona have also retained a buy-back option and a percentage of any future profit. The arrangement looks perfectly sensible until the price of a possible return enters the conversation.

If Barça eventually decide that they want Marqués back, they will have to pay €60 million. The club have therefore sold their academy graduate for €11 million while securing the right to recover him for more than five times that amount. Control over his future has been retained. It is simply available in the premium package.

SC Braga also confirmed that Barcelona will receive 20 per cent of the profit from a future sale. The Portuguese club have acquired full ownership of the player, who has signed a contract running until 2031 and will wear the number 16 shirt.

Marqués joined La Masia in the summer of 2015. He progressed through the academy, represented the youth teams and Barça Atlètic, and made his senior debut against Mallorca in February. He later featured against Deportivo Alavés. Those two appearances proved to be the entirety of his first-team career in Barcelona.

The midfielder had previously been considered a possible option for Hansi Flick’s squad. Increased competition in midfield, the arrival of Rodri and the club’s need to generate further transfer income changed the situation. Barcelona chose guaranteed money now over the possibility that Marqués might eventually establish himself in the team.

It would be difficult to describe the deal as a financial failure. Receiving €11 million for a player with two senior appearances is significant business. For SC Braga, Marqués represents one of the most expensive signings in the club’s history. One of the players who cost them more up front was another former Barcelona prospect, Pau Víctor.

The Portuguese club appear to have created a dedicated department for players who run out of space in Catalonia. Barcelona receive cash, Braga receive a young midfielder and Marqués should finally receive a genuine opportunity to play.

If the Spaniard fails to fulfil his potential, Barça will be able to point towards an excellent sale. If he develops into a top player, the club will remind everyone that a buy-back clause was included. Finding the €60 million can wait. That will be a problem for the Barcelona of the future, and it has plenty of experience dealing with decisions made by the Barcelona of the past.

Barcelona did not disclose the fee, because farewell messages are apparently easier to publish than actual numbers. Cadena SER previously reported a figure of around €50 million. If that amount is accurate, Barça have finally completed a major transfer. Unfortunately, it is an outgoing one.

Ferran leaves after 207 appearances, 65 goals and seven assists. He won seven trophies and scored 16 league goals last season, sharing the Zarra Trophy. PSG are not taking an unwanted player gathering dust on the bench. They are signing a 26-year-old forward coming off the best league campaign of his career.

Barcelona receive the money, while Luis Enrique gets a player he already knows extremely well from the Spanish national team. The deal looks perfectly reasonable—at least until Barça start searching for a replacement and discover that other clubs price their strikers for desperate buyers, not charitable causes.

Only a week ago, Mundo Deportivo reported that Romero was waiting to see whether Barcelona would make a move. Deco had held talks with his agent and rated the defender highly, but Barça had other priorities: a striker, Rodri and the need to complete departures first. Atlético, meanwhile, were actually negotiating with Tottenham.

The ending feels rather familiar. Barcelona had the player on their list; Atlético now have him in their dressing room. For around €40m, Atlético have secured a World Cup winner and an experienced Premier League defender, while Barça can move another name from “interesting option” to the archives.

The 27-year-old remains under contract with Barcelona until 2031 and is one of the club’s captains, but started only 11 league matches last season. Liverpool need an experienced centre-back because of their injury problems. Barça also have defensive concerns, so naturally they are sending a defender to England. The plan makes perfect sense as long as nobody examines it too closely.

Barcelona are not selling Araújo, but they are effectively handing Liverpool control over his future. If he thrives, the English club can buy him. If he struggles, he returns and Barça can reopen the same discussion next summer. The defender may be leaving temporarily. The uncertainty is staying for good.

Liverpool needed another centre-back after Ibrahima Konaté’s departure and injuries across their back line. Barcelona apparently looked at someone else’s squad problems and decided to help. Araújo made 38 appearances last season, and his minutes will now have to be covered mainly by Pau Cubarsí, Eric García, Andreas Christensen and potentially Gerard Martín. Christensen only recently returned after a serious knee injury, but apparently details like squad depth should not get in the way of a good transfer story.

Araújo has not exactly been untouchable and there is no point pretending his recent form has been flawless. The strange part is that Barça are not cashing in on him for a huge fee. They are loaning him out while making an already questionable area of the squad even thinner. A very Barcelona solution: create the hole first, then spend the final weeks of the transfer window desperately searching for somebody to fill it.

So if we suddenly hear later this month that Barça are “urgently assessing the centre-back market”, don’t call it a plot twist. It will simply be the next stage of the plan that started by sending Araújo to Anfield.

Diomandé finished his first season in Leipzig with 13 goals and 10 assists in 36 appearances. The German club paid Leganés €20 million for him in the summer of 2025 and are now selling him for more than six times that amount. Even Barça must admire the business — they usually appear in deals like this from the opposite side of the table.

A dispute between Diomandé’s former and current representatives delayed the transfer, but neither the agency battle nor his brief return to Leipzig’s training camp changed his decision. The Ivory Coast international wanted Madrid, and Real eventually met the German club’s demands. There were no public ultimatums, endless “decisive weeks” or fresh reports every three days claiming that the player already had one foot inside the club.

Diomandé becomes Real’s sixth signing of the summer after Konaté, Dumfries, Bernardo Silva, Cucurella and Espím. José Mourinho asked for a quick, fearless winger and received one. Barcelona can now calmly announce that they had been following Diomandé since his Leganés days but ultimately decided he did not fit the profile. Ideally, that story should appear just after his first hat-trick.