{"id":70711,"date":"2026-08-14T23:30:22","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/70711\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T23:30:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T23:30:22","slug":"the-matter-is-in-the-hands-of-the-management-inzaghi-opens-the-door-to-cancelos-return-to-barcelona","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/70711\/","title":{"rendered":"“The matter is in the hands of the management”: Inzaghi opens the door to Cancelo’s return to Barcelona"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Portuguese star piles on the pressure..<\/p>\n

A single word from Simone Inzaghi was enough to ignite the transfer market at Barcelona. The Al-Hilal coach confirmed that Joao Cancelo’s future is no longer a technical decision, but a matter for the Saudi club’s management.<\/p>\n

The Italian spoke just hours before Al-Hilal’s opening league match against Al-Faisaly, and he duly left the Portuguese full-back out of the squad. It was a clear sign Cancelo has no place in his plans for the start of the season.<\/p>\n

Inzaghi told the Spanish newspaper “Sport<\/a>“: “Cancelo continues to train regularly with the team, but his future and whether he stays or not is a matter for the board of directors.”<\/p>\n

Barcelona read the statement as a green light to push ahead with negotiations for his return. Coach Hansi Flick has made him a top priority to reinforce the full-back position, thanks to his ability to play on both the right and left flanks.<\/p>\n

Cancelo, for his part, has not hidden his desire to return to the Camp Nou. He made that plain on Instagram last Friday, posting a fresh image linked to Barcelona on his Stories, his second public hint since the end of last season.<\/p>\n

The obstacle: 15 million euros<\/p>\n

Both clubs had edged close to a deal worth 10 million euros. Then Saudi sources revealed that Al-Hilal have raised their demands to 15 million euros before they will let the 32-year-old leave.<\/p>\n

That has cooled the talks. Barcelona refuse to pay an inflated fee, while Al-Hilal hold firm, waiting to find a suitable replacement before releasing their Portuguese star.<\/p>\n

The ball now sits with sporting director Deco. He needs to find a formula that lowers the fee and delivers the Cancelo return that Flick is waiting for.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Portuguese star piles on the pressure.. A single word from Simone Inzaghi was enough to ignite the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[182,92,24127,27694,1888,265],"class_list":["post-70711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barcelona","tag-al-hilal","tag-barcelona","tag-j-cancelo","tag-s-inzaghi","tag-saudi-pro-league","tag-transfers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}