Barcelona are moving toward talks with Manchester City over Rodri, with the midfielder now their leading target even as Real Madrid watch the same race. Rodri favours a move to the Camp Nou, and City are expected to open the bidding at about €80million.
The timing matters because Barcelona are not shopping from strength so much as from need. Their top priority has been to reinforce in attack, with Julian Alvarez the main target after Robert Lewandowski's contract expired in June, but a deal for Rodri would pull the club's summer focus toward midfield and away from the position they first set out to address.
Rodri's case is unusually clean for a player of his value. His deal at the Etihad Stadium runs until the end of next season, and he has not shown a willingness to extend it. That gives Barcelona a route into a negotiation they might not have had otherwise, even if the asking price remains high and Manchester City have every reason to hold firm.
For Barcelona, the bigger issue is not just whether City will sell. It is whether the club can complete and register another expensive signing under La Liga's salary-limit rules. Barcelona have already lived through that problem with Dani Olmo, whom they signed in August 2024 for €60million but could not register in time for the start of the season. An injury to Andreas Christensen briefly opened a loophole, La Liga refused registration again in January 2025, and only an appeal to the Consejo Superior de Deportes cleared the way later.
That history hangs over every major move they make. In 2022, Jules Kounde and in 2023 Ilkay Gundogan both arrived with clauses allowing them to leave on a free transfer if Barcelona could not register them, a sign of how often the club has had to write around the same financial obstacle. Even if Barcelona are now in a better place to spend after returning to the Camp Nou, La Liga still calculates each club's salary limit individually on revenues, and overspending can restrict registrations rather than simply delay them.
So the next step is clear enough: Barcelona must first agree a fee with Manchester City, then prove they can put Rodri on the books. If they cannot do both, the club's most ambitious midfield move may end up colliding with the same wage rules that have already complicated Dani Olmo, Kounde and Gundogan.
