Despite recent suggestions that Marcus Rashford was Barcelona’s third-choice option as they looked to sign a striker this summer, Mail Sport can reveal the Manchester United forward was always the player Barca sporting director Deco wanted to bring to the club.
The Spanish champions came close to signing the 27-year-old in January but their financial difficulties saw the deal fall through. Then, when it was back on track this summer, Nico Williams’s attempt to join Barca almost wrecked Rashford’s dream.
But now he can rest easy after leaving behind his life as a United cast-off to become Barcelona’s headline summer signing and their first Englishman since Gary Lineker left in 1989.
Rashford will train under head coach Hansi Flick this week and fly to Japan with Lamine Yamal and company on Thursday for a 10-day Asian tour, despite the fact he will not yet be eligible to play for Barca.
The club are unable to register new signings at the moment but Rashford’s willingness to take a calculated gamble that he will be eligible by the time the season starts has paved the way for his arrival.
Barcelona identified Rashford as a quality solution to their shortage of money and strikers last January, but the deal was reliant on Ansu Fati leaving the club and he refused to move, so Rashford’s arrival was parked.
Marcus Rashford is closing in on a season-long loan move from Man United to Barcelona
The England international landed in Barcelona on Sunday ahead of completing the move
Rashford was always the player Barcelona sporting director Deco wanted to bring to the club
Deco met Rashford’s agent and brother Dwaine Maynard in Barcelona at the end of May, and the exchange only strengthened his conviction that the England forward was the ideal reinforcement for a forward line that has only Ferran Torres in reserve behind the first-choice front three of Yamal, Raphinha and 36-year-old Robert Lewandowski.
Then, on June 9, everything appeared to change. It was the day after the Nations League final between Spain and Portugal that the Spanish lost on penalties. Athletic Bilbao winger Williams’ response to the disappointment was to direct his agent to get back in touch with Barcelona.
Williams, 23, had almost joined Barca at the start of the previous season and now he wanted everything possible done to make the move happen.
Yamal got very excited — as he had done 12 months earlier — at the prospect of a player he calls his ‘brother’ joining him, and it appeared Rashford was no longer the first choice. Williams agreed terms with Barcelona and the club agreed in principle to pay his £52million release clause.
But there were still important voices — Deco among them — that believed Rashford was the better option. This was because if Williams came, he would demand a starting berth and risk creating problems in a squad that was in total harmony and free of ego last season. Rashford, meanwhile, would come in with none of those demands and could play through the middle when necessary.
Williams’ move to Barca collapsed at the start of this month and, although some called it an embarrassment for the club, Deco was more than happy.
The Spain winger had demanded contractual assurances he would be registered in time for the new season, and wanted a clause that would allow him to leave for free if there were problems. Barca said no to those demands and picked up the phone to Rashford again.
Rashford was being depicted by some in the Catalan media as an alternative to Liverpool’s Luis Diaz, supposedly Barca’s new first-choice option, but the cold reality for the club was that the £69m-rated forward was never within their budget.
The Spanish giants were on the verge of signing Nico Williams – but the move collapsed
The cold reality for Barcelona was that the £69m-rated Luis Diaz was never within their budget
Rashford will train under head coach Hansi Flick this week and fly to Japan with the squad
Barcelona were fined £13m by UEFA last month for financial fair play infringements — a punishment which could rise to £52m if they do not get their accounts in order — and they are also still reeling from the losses they have incurred from two seasons playing at the Olympic Stadium in Montjuic, with its capacity of 40,000, while the Nou Camp is renovated.
They also had to foot a huge bill at the start of the summer for players who had long since left but were owed backdated wages. Lionel Messi received around £5.2m on June 30 and his Inter Miami team-mates Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets were also due payments for wages deferred during the Covid pandemic.
Another factor in Rashford’s favour was the fact that many Barcelona supporters were not convinced by the idea of signing Diaz.
‘Look at what Antony did at Real Betis’ was one frequently aired view, hinting at the way United are now seen as a club where good players fail but can be revitalised elsewhere.
If it does not work for Rashford this season then Barca will be under no obligation to sign him permanently, though they do have the option to buy him for £40m next summer. The Catalans will pay Rashford’s wages but the forward agreed to take a 15 per cent cut on his £315,000-a-week pay packet to facilitate the deal.
La Liga will want to examine the deal closely so they can decide whether Barca should be allowed to register him.
The club already needed to balance their books in order to register Joan Garcia, the goalkeeper they signed from neighbours Espanyol last month, and Wojciech Szczesny, who has agreed to remain at the club after his previous deal expired.
Last year, Barcelona president Joan Laporta announced the club had sold the 30-year rights to VIP boxes that will be present in the newly renovated Nou Camp for £83m. He wants that money audited as immediate income but La Liga are reluctant to agree to this because the renovation work on the stadium is still a year away from being completed.
Barcelona are not due to play at the new Nou Camp until September with construction ongoing
Last year, Joan Laporta confirmed Barcelona sold 30-year VIP box rights at the new Nou Camp
It was supposed to be open with a reduced capacity of 60,000 for a pre-season friendly against Como on August 10, but the work has not been finished so that curtain-raiser will instead take place in the tiny Johan Cruyff Stadium at the club’s training ground.
Barca asked for their first three fixtures this season to be away from home and so are not due to play at the new Nou Camp until September 14, but even that date is dependent on the club getting health-and-safety clearance.
Selling goalkeeper Marc-Andre ter Stegen would take around £17m off the wage bill and enable them to register Rashford, Garcia and Szczesny, but Ter Stegen has three years left on a lucrative contract and has told the club he does not want to leave.
Privately, Ter Stegen’s agent is looking at options to move him, and if that happens the money will be there to register Rashford.
Defenders Andreas Christensen and Ronald Araujo have both been put up for sale, and Barca have also been looking for potential suitors of their hugely talented attacking midfielder Fermin Lopez, but at the moment none of those players look close to leaving.
Last season, Dani Olmo joined Barcelona from RB Leipzig but had to sit out the first three games before he was cleared to play. The feeling is that Barca will get Rashford registered but perhaps only after a similar struggle.
Barca will talk up any financial sacrifice the player has made to ingratiate him with his new supporters, and there is genuine belief he can be reinvigorated by Flick, who speaks perfect English and has spoken to Rashford at length already.
Rashford being an English speaker will be put to good use on the upcoming Asian tour, and that is another reason Barca wanted the deal done quickly — an English-speaking player will help the club get the most from their Philips Ambilight TV-sponsored tour of Japan and South Korea.
Rashford being an English speaker will be put to good use on the upcoming Asian tour
If Marc-Andre ter Stegen was to leave the club then it could help Rashford’s registration
The club have looked enviously at how Real Madrid have taken advantage of Jude Bellingham’s huge appeal in the anglophone world, but now they have their own England international.
Barcelona believe this is their last year in the financial mire. By the start of the 2026-27 season, the Nou Camp will be completed and operating with its full capacity of 105,000.
The club are also battling with La Liga for the right to be allowed to spend a euro for every euro they generate — the so-called 1:1 rule. For much of the past few years they have been restricted to a 1:5 rule, which means that if they sell a player for €50m they can only spend €10m.
There is light at the end of the tunnel for Barca and that will be the case for Rashford as well if he can fit into the side that out-scored every other team in Europe last season.
