Barcelona agree €80 million fee with Atletico Madrid for Felix, two options of payment being considered

Barcelona took a massive risk during the final stages of the 2023 summer transfer window as they offloaded both of Ansu Fati and Ez Abde, leaving just Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha, and Ferran Torres as the first-team forwards in the squad.

This was on the back of Ousmane Dembele leaving to join Paris Saint-Germain for €50 million, leaving the squad’s attack severely harmed.

Signing another forward became priority in the final few days of the window, and the club came up with the solution through Atletico Madrid’s Joao Felix. He was loaned in for the entirety of the 2023/24 season, with no option to buy.

The Portuguese was coming on the back of a poor loan campaign at Chelsea, and the expectations were not particularly high. However, Felix has started life at Barça brilliantly, having scored three goals and two assists in nine appearances so far.

The blaugranes are impressed, as well, and have already agreed to a €80 million fee in writing with Atletico Madrid for his permanent transfer in 2024, as per a report by SPORT.

Barcelona, under severe financial distress, cannot pay that amount upfront to Atleti in the summer, and are considering two ways out of this problem.

Installments or second loan

Firstly, Barcelona are thinking about paying that amount across three installments, that amount to around €25 million each.

While this would make the transfer a ‘little less impossible’, Barcelona still think it is not in their best interest to invest €80 million on just one player.

Therefore, the other way Barcelona can end up signing Felix is if they reach an agreement with Atletico on another loan stint, with an obligation to buy him in the summer of 2025.

This operation would likely require Barcelona to pay much more than the €400,000 salary they are paying to him, and could also force their hand into paying a loan fee, like Chelsea did last season.

In this scenario, the report states that Felix could be available for around €40 million, which is a much more realistic scenario for Barcelona.