Nico Williams has confirmed to his Spain teammates that play for Barcelona that he intends to join the Blaugrana this summer.
According to Sport, Williams this week told Lamine Yamal, Pedri and his Barcelona teammates in the Spain national team: “Brothers, take me back with you.”
The door to such a deal appeared to have been slammed shut by president Joan Laporta earlier in the window. Barcelona were upset that Nico, who has a release fee worth €58 million in his Athletic Club contract, knocked them back last summer.
Now this stance has softened and Barcelona have reopened talks to sign Williams.
Williams to Barcelona
News of these talks have delighted Barcelona’s star players, with both Yamal and Raphinha posting on social media to declare their happinness at the prospect of Williams joining.
And with Williams now reportedly pushing for the move himself, there are increased chances of a successful conclusion to the talks.
This all comes as bad news to Arsenal, who had made Williams their top winger target this summer.
FootballTransfers recently confirmed that the Gunners were in talks with Williams’ representatives and had been put into pole position for the deal by their new sporting director Andrea Berta.
Arsenal would be happy to trigger Williams’ €58 million release clause in his Athletic contract if they table a bid but his high wage demands have made negotiations over personal terms tricky.
Arsenal and Barcelona were in a two-way tussle to sign Williams last summer but the player eventually stayed at Athletic Bilbao.
Barca had been particularly desperate to sign the Athletic winger last summer but were unable to complete a deal for the same financial reasons.
It has long since been claimed that Williams would ideally rather join Barca if that move is still on the table.
Williams at Euro 2024
Williams was one of the stars of Euro 2024 with electric performances as Spain won the trophy.
He scored in the 2-1 final win over England and was one of the players of the tournament.
His best performance was arguably against Italy where he tore apart the right-back Giovanni Di Lorenzo and set up the winner – an own goal by Riccardo Calafiori.
He also scored a fantastic goal in the win over Georgia in the last-16.
The 22-year-old Williams is considered one of the most exciting young wingers in all of Europe.
Blessed with lightning pace and dribbling skills, he has a promising future in the game.
After making his debut for Athletic in 2021, Williams has scored 31 goals in 164 games.
He has also scored five goals in 26 games for Spain, and travelled to the 2022 World Cup.
This season he scored 11 goals in 43 games.
