Manchester City Reject Barcelona's $19M Bid For Defender Who Wants To Rejoin Catalans: Report

Manchester City reportedly have rejected FC Barcelona’s offer for defender Eric Garcia on the deadline day (Oct. 5) of the summer transfer window.

While Barcelona made a bid of $19 million, plus add-ons for Garcia, Man City were not ready to accept anything less than $25 million for the central defender, Sky Sports reported. The 19-year-old Garcia, who has entered the final year of his contract is set to see out his deal with the Etihad side.

Garcia, who kickstarted his soccer career at Barcelona’s La Masia academy in 2018, parted ways with the Catalans in 2017 to join Man City’s youth set up. The defender, who can play either as a center-back or right-back, will be a free agent next season and is expected to return to Nou Camp. It is understood that Garcia could receive offers from several top European clubs, but the defender is keen on Barcelona, where he had started his soccer career.

Soccer website Goal had earlier reported that Pep Guardiola was happy with Garcia and Man City offered the Spanish player a contract extension, which Garica turned down saying he was not willing to sign a new deal with the former Premier League champions.

"He announced to us that he doesn’t want to extend his contract with Manchester City. He has one more year and after that, he doesn’t want to extend. We want it but he doesn’t want to extend it so I imagine he wants to play in other places," Guardiola had said at a press conference earlier this year.

Garcia made his first-team debut in the 2018-19 campaign, but only received his Premier League cap last season, where he overall made 20 competitive appearances, including 13 in the league. In the ongoing 2020-21 season, Garcia has already played twice for Man City, his last game being his side’s 5-2 home loss to Leicester City.

Since the international break is underway, Garcia is already in Madrid with his national team ahead of Spain’s friendly match against Portugal that is scheduled to be played Wednesday.