Barcelona President Joan Laporta looking to bring in major star for 2025 summer | OneFootball

Barcelona President Joan Laporta has never been afraid of making a statement, and his two mandates thus far have revolved around the star signings of Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry and Zlatan Ibrahimovic in his first spell, and Robert Lewandowski in his second. He is already planning his next big heist.

How exactly he goes about raising the funds for that is yet to become clear. But both Sport and MD have reported that Laporta’s main goal for the summer of 2025 is to bring in Manchester City star Erling Haaland. The giant Norwegian was spoken to by Xavi Hernandez in early 2022 before he joined City, and there is a feeling he could be available.

Haaland has never hidden his desire to play in Spain, and Diario AS claim that despite the imminent arrival of Kylian Mbappe, he can still see himself playing for Real Madrid. Yet Barcelona and Laporta will offer Haaland the chance to form a rivalry between arguably the two best forwards in the world.

In 2025, Haaland will have spent three seasons at City, and that is also the summer that Pep Guardiola’s deal expires – should he leave, then that could lessen the attraction of playing for City.

At this point revenue should have increased for Barcelona, being back in Camp Nou. Barcelona have confidence in Lewandowski for next season, and they also have faith in Vitor Roque and Marc Guiu to continue their development, but there is an agreement that a star name could be needed for the following season to lead the line. This is despite the fact that Lewandowski has a clause in his contract which will renew his deal for a further season if he plays in 50% of Barcelona’s matches in 2024-25.

In addition to the above, Laporta shares an excellent relationship with Haaland’s agent, Rafaela Pimenta, who has said in the past that she will ‘go to the death’ with him. Laporta won his first election off the back of promising David Beckham’s signing, and ahead of another election in 2026, it looks like he will lean on signings again, with Haaland on his mind this stime.