Agreement between Barça and City for the signing of Rodri

BarcelonaRodrigo Hernández, Rodri, will be a Barça player. The blaugrana club reached a preliminary agreement this Sunday with Manchester City for the signing of the Madrid-born midfielder. The operation will be official during the week, once all the documentation has been drafted and signed. The intention is that Rodri, who will sign for four seasons, can be presented as early as Wednesday during the Joan Gamper Trophy, according to blaugrana sources.

Barça will sign the 2024 Ballon d'Or and the footballer chosen as the best player of the World Cup, where he was crowned with the Spanish national team. According to what ARA has been able to learn, the operation amounts to around 77 million euros. The blaugrana club will pay a fixed fee of 60 million euros, plus 11.5 million more with easily achievable variables (such as, for example, based on matches played in La Liga) and another variable of five million euros in case La Liga is won and Rodri plays in more than half of the matches.

The operation accelerated this weekend, after Barça presented a third offer for the player which has finally been accepted by City. The agreement was sealed this Sunday and the Barcelona entity was the first of the two clubs to leak it to the press. The footballer will undergo medical tests this Tuesday morning and the Catalan team's plan is to officially announce his signing this very Tuesday and that he can participate in the squad presentation at the Gamper on Wednesday.

Rodri, who cannot yet play because after the World Cup he had to undergo back surgery, was not present in Cardiff this Sunday, the day City played the Community Shield against Arsenal, a match that ended with a "cityzen" defeat by 0-3. Aware that the operation would be closed in a matter of hours, he was not even in the stands of the stadium. In fact, City's directors had already given the green light to the operation previously, but they waited until after the final to communicate it to Barça. In this way, the midfielder will take a plane to fly to Barcelona, where he will undergo a medical examination as a prior step to signing the agreement until 2030.

A quick but not at all simple signing

The signing of the midfielder has been relatively quick, but that doesn't mean it has been easy. Initially, Real Madrid had contacted City for the signing of the midfielder and the operation seemed well underway. But, according to sources close to the Madrid club, everything came to nothing when the whites made a lower offer that did not please the Manchester club at all. In parallel, Rodri, who wanted a change of scenery, contacted Barça through his representative. When Deco learned that he could sign the player, an express negotiation began that lasted a couple of weeks.

European and world champion with Spain and Champions League winner and four-time Premier League winner with City, he had one year left on his contract in Manchester, but Rodri had already let the directors know that he did not want to renew. Thus, the blue-red club's hierarchy knew that this summer was the last they could cash in on a player who arrived in 2019 from Atlético de Madrid. With this in mind, Barça's first offer was relatively low, as it did not reach 50 million. Money that City rejected outright. Then came a second, higher offer that also did not satisfy the English club's demands. And, finally, on Friday, Barça made a third, more lucrative offer that has been decisive.

The Ferran Torres factor has also been taken into account in the negotiations. The forward, who swapped City for Barça in the winter of 2022, had a clause according to which the Manchester club would pocket eight million if he renewed his contract with the blaugranas, or a maximum of 10 if Barça sold him for more than 55 million. Since neither has happened – Barça sold him to PSG for less than 50 – the "cityzen directors have tried to recover this investment by raising Rodri's price. From Camp Nou they do not confirm this claim and limit themselves to assuring that Rodri's arrival represents "a leap in quality" for the team.

Rodri, a footballer with a long history of injuries

The only doubt with the footballer is his injury history. In the 24/25 season, he played a testimonial role with City, as he tore his cruciate ligament in his knee. He was out for 220 days and, once recovered, missed a few more matches due to discomfort. The footballer was able to say goodbye to his knee problems in September 2025 and play normally throughout the season, but last season he suffered two muscular injuries that caused him to miss about twenty matches. Even so, he recovered and returned to his peak level, as he demonstrated at the World Cup.

Rodri will occupy the pivot position in a Barça that starts the season with many players in midfield. One of them, Marc Casadó, is on the way out and should leave the club before the summer market ends, while Frenkie de Jong will be out until Christmas due to a knee injury.