Barcelona may beat Real Madrid in race to rope in Napoli star: Reports

Barcelona's Spanish coach Ernesto Valverde gives a thumbs-up before the Spanish league football match between FC Barcelona and Real Valladolid FC at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on October 29, 2019. (Photo by LLUIS GENE / AFP)


The latest buzz in the European transfer market is that La Liga giants Barcelona are striving hard to beat Real Madrid to the signing of Napoli star Fabian Ruiz during the forthcoming January transfer window.

A report carried by Sportsmole claims that Eric Abidal, the Sporting Director of Barcelona, was seen scouting the Napoli star in a Serie A match in the ongoing season. Presently, Barca’s interest in Ruiz is widely reported and they might as well be preparing a bid for him as they seem keen to have him in their squad in the January transfer window.

A separate set of reports claim that Real Madrid are eyeing Ruiz as an alternative to other targets like Manchester United’s Paul Pogba and Christian Eriksen. However, there are other reports which are stating that Real Madrid only want to inflate the Napoli star’s market rate to make life difficult for their arch-rival Real Madrid.

It is worth highlighting that in the last summer window, Napoli had tried to convince their star payer to extend his contract until 2023. However, their efforts did not yield any efforts as Ruiz did not extend his contract and his current contract is set to expire in 2023.