FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta has effectively put its captain Marc-Andre ter Stegen up for sale according to RAC1, which cited anonymous sources.
The German missed most of 2024/2025 thanks to a serious ACL rupture suffered away at Villarreal in September, which resulted in the Catalans bringing Wojciech Szczesny out of retirement as back up.
Inaki Pena soon became Hansi Flick’s number one choice, but disciplinary and punctuality problems at the Spanish Super Cup in Saudi Arabia at the turn of 2025 resulted in ‘Tek’ taking over the reins and playing a key part in Barca’s eventual domestic treble win.
Ter Stegen returned as that campaign drew to a close, but the future of the goalkeeping department isn’t clear.
Barca looks to be closing in on Espanyol’s Joan Garcia who became a breakout star last term in La Liga, while Szczesny looks set to extend his one year contract.
With Pena also still on the books, that’s at least four men for one position without mentioning American prospect Diego Kochen.
While there have been rumors that Garcia would be bought and then loaned out to another Spanish club such as Valencia, which doesn’t make much sense, RAC1 reports that President Laporta told the board on Thursday night that they trust in the Espanyol ‘keeper’s ‘yes’ and “want to get rid of the German goalkeeper” i.e. Ter Stegen.
If true, this is a major plot twist at Can Barca, with Ter Stegen an ‘untouchable’ for a decade since winning the Champions League against Juventus in the capital of his homeland Berlin back in 2015.
Basically, it is Laporta allegedly saying in public for the first time that if Garcia comes, Ter Stegen must go.
This will be music to the ears of a certain corner of Barcelona fans that have been behind a ‘TerStegenOut’ campaign on X, formerly known as Twitter, which has made a point of using such a hashtag as often as possible.
With a contract until 2028, however, Ter Stegen is under no obligation to move on and could anger some even more by refusing to leave.
Selling Ter Stegen would free up funds for FC Barcelona
By offloading Ter Stegen, FC Barcelona would free up money to go after Marcus Rashford and also have the much-needed space it needs to stay on the right side of Financial Fair Play by getting his salary off the payroll.