Porto enraged by Barcelona’s pursuit 16-year-old prodigy, threaten to burn bridges | OneFootball

Earlier this week, Deco met with Dani Olmo’s agent Andy Bara to discuss the signing of a prodigal 16-year-old talent Cardoso Varela.

The youngster, currently playing at Dinamo Zagreb, has after all been in the club’s radars for a long time now and a deal worth close to €5 million was rumoured to be close.

Now, however, SPORT brings to light a massive controversy that Barcelona will find themselves in should they complete the signing.

Breaking bridges with Porto

As relayed by the outlet, Porto have written to Barcelona and UEFA to confirm and request information on whether the player has signed for the Catalan giants.

Further, they have even threatened to break institutional ties with the Blaugrana should the deal go through.

The reason for the complicated situation requires one to dive back in time by a few years and understand the unique story of Varela which truly is mind-boggling.

Porto threatening legal action over Barcelona’s pursuit of Cardoso Varela. (Photo by Octavio Passos/Getty Images)

Varela was initially in Porto’s academy and set to break into the Portuguese side’s youth team. He was on the radar of several top clubs and Porto wished to renew him and bet on his quality.

All of a sudden, however, the player disappeared from training and from the country and was taken to Croatia by his agents to play in a fourth-division team. Their plan was to use the new nation as a stepping stone to secure a big-money move.

Porto denounced the events and called it a literal ‘kidnapping’, even taking the case to FIFA. However, no progress was made and even UEFA did not intervene in him playing the Youth League with Dinamo Zagreb citing the player’s right to play.

Varela’s agents meeting with Deco to complete their plan, thus, has ignited the offices in Portugal into rage and the club are hell-bent on taking action in the form of a legal battle.

Barcelona, thus, have a big decision to make on that front, either preserving relationships with the club or signing the player and getting into legal battles.