Barcelona winger Raphinha has rejected a move to Newcastle United after the Premier League club struck an agreement for a transfer, according to reports.
The Magpies could be faced with a challenging summer in the transfer market as they look to keep up their ambitions of being one of the best teams in Europe while looking to avoid falling foul of the financial rules.
In-form striker Alexander Isak and influential midfielder Bruno Guimaraes are coveted by rivals at home and abroad and Newcastle, who are determined to hang on to their biggest names, will have to negotiate a balancing act as they go about the latest phase of their recruitment drive.
Newcastle CEO Darren Eales admitted earlier this year that the Magpies could have to sell some of their star players to reinvest back into the squad.
Eales said: “On any player, at any time, it depends on circumstances. It’s difficult to hypothesis but, if we’re offered £1bn for one of those players, then no-one could argue against that making sense.
“Any decision we make will always be against the backdrop of the medium to long-term benefit for the club. It’s difficult to say specifically on certain players, but I can say that, if we’re going to get to where we want to get to, at times it is necessary to trade your players.
Whether that is because of the contract length of the player in question, the offer is too good to refuse, you need to reload in certain areas, but all of this could make sense to trade that player. It is counter-intuitive and part of the inherent system of PSR that there is an incentive to trade your players if you want to re-invest, by the nature of the boundaries.”
If they are forced to sell some of their better players then Newcastle are already looking to soften the blow by making moves of their own, with reports in Spain claiming Raphinha is one player they like.
Those reports claim Newcastle have already ‘closed the agreement’ with Barcelona as the Catalan giants know the Premier League club ‘would be willing to reach 60 million euros for his transfer, exactly the amount that the club paid for his services’ to Leeds United.
