Barca negotiating Lamine Yamal's first big contract

Lamine Yamal, as Xavi acknowledged on Saturday morning at a press conference, can mark an era at Barça. This is also recognised by those who have experienced his development at close quarters in youth football and the club will act accordingly. The aim, as usual when a player is close to turning 16, is to tie the player down with his first professional contract. His name has burst into limelight after he made his first call-up to the first team squad for the game against Atletico.

This is an important step for which the club usually uses very similar contracts divided in two stages: the three years at youth age plus another two complementary years once 18. The figures for this type of contractual relationship also come by default, although, obviously, the case of Lamine Yamal is not just any other.

It has happened before and he will not be the first. Historically, exceptions have been made for players who have very high potential. Ansu Fati, for example, was one of them. The aim is to avoid players escaping, like the ones that happened in the past. There are the cases of Cesc Fàbregas, Héctor Bellerín, Sergio Gómez or Adrià Bernabé, in different spells. 

The player from Mataró, a diamond in the rough who, little by little, is making his way into the first team, has several top European clubs on his tail, so Barça will need to convince him with good arguments. In that sense, the firm will of the youth player to succeed at the Camp Nou plays in favour of Blaugrana interests.

Change of agent

In fact, his previous agent, Iván de la Peña, who is also Gavi's and Eric Garcia's agent, started working on Lamine Yamal's new contract several weeks ago. However, it was at that point that Jorge Mendes came into play. The Portuguese agent convinced the player, who is now one of his clients, with an unavoidable economic proposal. 

From there, Barça already know that they will have to negotiate with Mendes to reach an agreement and tie down the player. Moreover, the date is marked in red in the agenda of the sports management because it will be on 15 July when Lamine Yamal turns 16, that he can sign his first professional contract. It will be a document in which, as well as having different economic amounts to the typical ones, as we have already mentioned, it will also lay the foundations of the sporting project that the club wants to propose to him and whose final destination is being a regular in the Barça first team.