Barcelona 'offer contract with €1bn release clause' to emerging youngster

Barcelona have offered a new contract to Pau Cubarsi that will make him the second teenager at the club in a matter of months to be tied to a €1bn (£855m) release clause, according to reports.

Cubarsi has been training with the first-team since last April when he was 16. He made his first-team debut in January three days before turning 17 and has started eight of the last nine La Liga games.

The centre-back's current contract runs until the summer of 2026 but, as has been the case with teammate Lamine Yamal after his rapid rise, the club appear keen to secure him to fresh terms.

Release clauses are mandatory in Spanish football and Mundo Deportivo explain that Cubarsi's existing deal has a triggerable set fee under €10m (£8.55m). Amid interest from Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Bayern Munich, that is low-hanging fruit Barca wish to remove.

As such, it is said that Cubarsi has been presented with a new proposal, one that would run until he turns 18 next year but with the ultimate goal of eventually securing his future in the much longer-term until 2030. Meanwhile, that release clause figure would immediately be set at €1bn.

As a minor, Cubarsi isn't yet allowed to sign a contract longer than three years. But with his importance to the first-team already clear, Barca are unsurprisingly keen to map out his future way beyond that as best as legally possible. It is thought to mirror their approach with Yamal, who made his senior debut aged 15 and is already of vital importance still at just 16.

Aside from Yamal, Barca have already applied €1bn release clauses to Ronald Araujo, Pedri, Gavi, Alejandro Balde and Ansu Fati in recent seasons. The club has learned a hard lesson in that sense, having been powerless to stop Neymar being poached by Paris Saint-Germain for €222m in 2017. That figure was thought to be prohibitive at the time, but the French giants proved otherwise.

Real Madrid were making use of extreme figures for release clauses much earlier, setting the one in Cristiano Ronaldo's first contact with the club at €1bn in 2009. That same year, Lionel Messi's release clause at Barcelona was set at €250m upon signing a new contract and did not increase until November 2017 when it rose to €700m, several months after the Neymar saga.

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