Barcelona yet to finalise terms to sign Joao Cancelo on loan

Barcelona have yet to agree terms with Manchester City over full-back Joao Cancelo, 90min understands.

The Portuguese international has been out of favour at Manchester City since the end of the 2021/22 season – a campaign in which he made the PFA team of the year – under Pep Guardiola and even spent the second half of 2022/23 out on loan at Bayern Munich.

Said loan gave Bayern the option to sign Cancelo outright for £61.6m during the summer. However, after largely failing to impress in Bavaria, that option was not exercised and the full-back returned to Manchester, where he is yet to play a single minute of competitive football this season.

While being ostracised from first-team football at City, Cancelo and the club have been in talks with Barcelona over a potential loan move this summer.

90min reported last week that Barca have been confident of finalising a deal soon, with the club being prepared to pay the majority of Cancelo’s wages over the course of the season and agreed in principle to also retain an option of £30m to sign the player outright in summer 2024.

Cancelo had been of interest to Saudi Pro League clubs, as well as Premier League giants Arsenal. But the chance to play regular football under Xavi Hernandez and Barcelona, where he would be the club’s only natural right-back, meant that a move to Camp Nou was the player’s first choice.

However, while Cancelo is keen, 90min understands that Barcelona are still yet to fully agree terms with City due to some finer details regarding their £30m option not being ironed out.

The full-back is currently waiting for a green light to take his medical before officially putting pen to paper, and although the move has been delayed sources have told 90min that the deal isn’t far away from completion.