Chelsea have reached an agreement in principle with Marc Guiu to sign the 18-year-old striker from Barcelona on a contract until June 2030.
The west London club are to activate a €6million (£5.1m; $6.4m)release clause in Guiu’s existing deal at Camp Nou and schedule a medical in London.
Guiu is a product of Barcelona’s La Masia youth academy, having been at the club since 2013.
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He first appeared in the first team squad during pre-season in 2023, featuring on Barcelona’s tour of Japan.
Guiu spent last season alternating between Barcelona’s first team and Barcelona Atletic, the club’s reserve side which plays in the regionalised Spanish third tier.
The Spain youth international made seven first-team appearances during the campaign, scoring twice. Guiu’s match-winning goal in October’s 1-0 win against Athletic Bilbao made him Barcelona’s youngest-ever player to score on debut, at the age of 17 years and 291 days. For Barcelona Athletic, he registered six goals in 17 games.
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Chelsea had prioritised signing a striker this summer with Nicolas Jackson their main central forward in the 2023-24 season.
Romelu Lukaku, Armando Broja, David Datro Fofana and Mason Burstow are among the attacking options who are returning to Stamford Bridge this summer following loan spells away.
‘It feels like Barca are losing their heritage’
Analysis by Laia Cervello Herroro
FC Barcelona fans will never celebrate the departure of a player from La Masia. It feels like losing more than just a player, it feels like losing a part of the club’s heritage.
It was hoped that when Robert Lewandowski eventually left Barcelona, Marc Guiu would take his place. He is still very young and managed to produce a good goal return with limited playing time in the first team.
The promiscuity in football and in a FC Barcelona in financial crisis that has found solutions in its young players when it needed them, are factors that have inevitably promoted this way of thinking.
Guiu, for one reason or another, has never been one of the players the club has over-promoted until he scored the winning goal against Athletic Club within a minute of making his first-team debut.
The Barca fan was well aware that players would have to be sold. That the economic situation is serious and that sales are needed to be able to build a future project that is not yet fully defined, except for a young generation of talent coming from La Masia.
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With all the noise that has come out in recent weeks about the club wanting to cash in on Mika Faye and Alex Valle, it has made the fans realise that the club needed to sell, even players who are part of the club’s heritage, such as players from the youth team.
They didn’t put their hopes on him as they did to Yamal and a lot of them just remembered him from one game. It feels like 6M euros that fell from the sky to the club when they least expected it and that can help to heal part of the finances.
(David Ramos/Getty Images)