FC Barcelona Reach Agreement With Brozovic, Who Rejects Al-Nassr

FC Barcelona have reached an agreement with Inter Milan midfielder Marcelo Brozovic, according to Italian daily newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport.

The Croatian is currently being pursued by the Catalans and Al-Nassr, with a delegation from the Saudi Pro League giants travelling to the capital of the player’s homeland, Zagreb, to try and convince him to join Cristiano Ronaldo in their burgeoning squad La Gazzetta reports.

Brozovic didn’t even want to attend the meeting, however, which came to “nothing” as the 31-year-old is “not interested in seriously considering moving to Saudi Arabia”.

Brozovic is holding out for €30 million ($33 million) a year from Al-Nassr, who are refusing to budge from their €20 million ($22 million) offer causing a roadblock in negotiations.

But the fact that Brozovic didn’t show his face to the Al-Nassr delegation, with the group in return failing to convince his entourage, has been accepted as an indicator the player has “something else in mind” – i.e. donning Blaugrana.

La Gazzetta reports that Brozovic has already reached a “multi-year agreement” with Barca which will pay him €7 million ($7.7 million) per term.

Granted this is far from what Al-Nassr are offering, but it is still an improvement on the €6 million ($6.6 million) he takes home from the San Siro, where he helped Inter reach the Champions League final against new Barca signing Ilkay Gundogan’s former club Manchester City.

Brozovic has reportedly given Barca seven days to make a concrete offer to his club. According to SPORT, last week saw president Joan Laporta and his board table around €15 million ($16.4 million) for the midfielder who would act as a replacement for the more defensive pivot Sergio Busquets while Gundogan and Pedri assume attacking responsibilities in the center of the park.

Barca previously tried to involve their midfielder Franck Kessie in a swap deal for Brozovic, and the Ivorian will find himself further down the pecking order now that Gundogan has arrived.

Kessie is similarly linked to the Middle East, with Al-Ahli lodging a concrete offer from him to Barca yesterday according to Gerard Romero.

Also in a similar fashion, Kessie is reportedly holding out for more money and wants to see his salary at Camp Nou doubled before taking the plunge.

Offloading Kessie is seen as a vital operation which paves the way for Brozovic to land, but there are also a number of players returning from loan which will boost Barca’s wage bill on July 1 if other clubs aren’t found for them.

If Barca miss Brozovic’s deadline, he could – like Lionel Messi recently – cut his losses and instead continue his career elsewhere.

While in Messi’s case he went for Inter Miami and not Al-Hilal, Brozovic would instead team up with Ronaldo at Al-Hilal’s bitter rivals Al-Nassr.