Raphinha has reiterated his desire to stay at Barcelona amid reports linking him with a move back to the Premier League with Newcastle United.
The weekend saw Barcelona crowned La Liga champions for the first time since 2019 which meant that two Newcastle-linked players got their hands on some silverware in Ansu Fati and former Leeds United forward Raphinha.
The latter spoke to Barca TV (via Barca Universal) after the game where he confirmed that he hopes to remain at the Spanish side next season: “I hope to be able to come back again,” said Raphinha.
“We worked hard for this, we knew what we wanted and to crown the league with this rally is spectacular. It’s better than I imagined.”
“I would ask the people to keep supporting us because next season we are going to try something more and go for as many titles as we can get.”
Raphinha’s future at Barcelona has been in question since the turn of the year after rumours of him being unhappy with how little game time he was getting.
That changed when Ousmane Dembele picked up a knock and Raphinha capitalised on the situation. He has now worked his way into manager, Xavi‘s favour. The Barca boss wants Raphinha to stay at Barcelona but the board remain unconvinced by the Brazilian and would prefer to move him on.
Barcelona have been instructed to drop £175million from their wage bill in order to comply with Financial Fair Play rules and the board see selling ‘magic‘ Raphinha as a good start towards that goal.
Newcastle would likely have to stump up around £71million to prise him away from Barcelona, however, and it’s unlikely the Newcastle board will see that as a good deal, despite rumours suggesting that the club have already made a verbal offer of that amount.
Raphinha would be a quality signing for Newcastle, no doubt about it, but not at £71million. Also, the fact that any move away from Barcelona is likely to be a forced one, his commitment to a new club would automatically be called into question.
It’s probably best for Newcastle to leave this one alone if you ask me.
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