Barcelona moved quickly once La Liga wrapped for 2025\u201326, reaching an agreement with Newcastle United to sign Anthony Gordon. The transfer has immediate consequences for Marcus Rashford, who spent 2025\u201326 on loan at Barcelona and had been hoping the club would exercise a buy option that was priced below market value.<\/p>\n
There has been long-standing hesitance at Barcelona about committing to Rashford permanently. The club instead spent more than double that option on Gordon. Part of the rationale is accounting: amortization spreads the cost of a transfer fee and a player\u2019s salary across the length of a contract, reducing the club\u2019s annual burden.<\/p>\n
Barcelona could have spent just $35 million to sign Rashford on a permanent basis, but a higher annual salary and a shorter contract would not necessarily have been materially cheaper overall. The Gordon deal will pay Gordon slightly less than Rashford is believed to have been on during the loan and also spreads the transfer fee over two years more. Rashford was reportedly hoping Barcelona would offer him a five-year contract on less money instead, if it meant lowering the annual expense so he could stay.<\/p>\n
Sporting factors also played a part. Gordon, Liverpool-born, produced 12 goal involvements in 12 Champions League appearances this season, compared with eight in 26 Premier League matches. He also scored against Barcelona in the league phase, one of three appearances against the club he will now join. At more than three years younger than Rashford, Gordon offers room to improve and a potential resale in three or four years. By contrast, the draft argues, an investment in Rashford now could be almost completely lost by 2029, with the forward approaching 29.<\/p>\n
Barcelona have not formally ruled out signing Rashford and the player is reported to be holding on to hope. One anonymous club official told The Athletic that a deal is now “more complicated” than it was before Gordon happened.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gordon’s signing reflects Barcelona’s financial planning and longer-term potential for 2025\/26 now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,179,194],"tags":[1317,1081,506],"class_list":["post-14108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-manchester-united","category-newcastle-united","tag-accounts-2025-26","tag-adaptation","tag-anthony-gordon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}