While a lot has been written about the potential rise of swap transfers in football and how that could make sense for clubs, there’s a human aspect that is often overlooked.
It’s not like American sports where a player can be traded against their will, but you also wonder if they might be treated badly if their refusal to move scuppers a potentially big transfer for the club.
The Daily Mail has reported on the latest with Barcelona right back Nelson Semedo, and it appears they now just see him as a human pawn for their Summer dealings.
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They indicate that he could be key to Barca’s Summer dealings, because they are lining up three potential deals that could see him going the opposite way.
Those deals would be with Inter Milan to sign Lautaro Martinez, PSG to sign Neymar or Man City to sign Joao Cancelo.
The exchange with City would be interesting as that would essentially just see a swap of right backs, but you have to think Inter and PSG will want a sizeable fee on top of the Portuguese left back to let their star players go.
It’s not clear exactly what the plan is just now, but it seems obvious that Barca don’t see Semedo as being a major part of the team going forward.