Barcelona\u2019s interest in Rodri has reportedly been met with a firmer response from Manchester City, who have now raised their asking price to $94.5 million (\u00a370 million), according to The Times. It is a substantial figure for a 30-year-old midfielder who has had injury problems over the last two years, but City\u2019s latest valuation suggests they are not inclined to make the deal easy.<\/p>\n
For Barcelona, the decision is less about whether Rodri is an expensive target and more about whether they can afford to let the opportunity slip. The club are understood to be in a stronger financial position than they have been for some time, but their history of restraint, improvisation and pressure under La Liga\u2019s rules still lingers over every major move.<\/p>\n
That has changed to some extent. After years of operating under severe constraints, Barcelona are expected to be working within the 1:1 rule, which allows every euro brought in to be spent in the same summer, per The Athletic. The exits of high earners such as Robert Lewandowski and Marcus Rashford have helped create room, while the expected sale of Ferran Torres to Paris Saint-Germain should improve it further.<\/p>\n
Even so, the club\u2019s present flexibility may not last. Barcelona are due to leave Camp Nou again in June 2027 so a new roof can be installed, and the temporary move will bring financial strain. Reduced capacity will limit matchday income, while renovation costs continue to climb.<\/p>\n
That makes the timing of any move important. Barcelona may never find a cleaner moment to pursue a player of Rodri\u2019s stature, even if the price remains steep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barcelona may have room now, but Rodri\u2019s price and future costs could make timing decisive.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18452,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1017,238],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-18453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-barcelona","category-manchester-city","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18453","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=18453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18452"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}