Barcelona's plan to sign Griezmann before the World Cup this summer

Barcelona plan to put their foot on the accelerator in the coming weeks to close the signing of Antoine Greizmann for next season as soon as possible. Aware of Atletico Madrid's attempts to keep hold of their star player and that the player has said publicly he wants things sorted before this summer's World Cup, Barça will work on finding a solution as soon as they can. Negotiations to finalise the deal will develop on three fronts. 

The first objective Barça have is to prevent the France forward's arrivel breaking their salary limit. For that reason, during the talks which have taken place so far it has become clear that Griezmann is ready to accept a lower salary at the club in exchange for some significant bonuses. Those circumstances make things easier for Barça to tie up the deal. 

AGREEMENT 

The second question to have in mind is that Barcelona want Griezmann to land at Camp Nou without ruining relations with Atletico. For that reason, it's planned for both clubs to meet soon to talk about a deal. The meeting will take place in the coming days and will see Barça officially communicate their desire to sign Griezmann to the Madrid-based club. Barça are keen to do a deal with Atletico and to avoid having to go to the LFP with the 100 million euro buyout clause. 

In fact, Barça are ready to pay slightly more than 100 million to sign Griezmann in the hope that Atletico will accept the payment in installments. 

The third and final question is the dates. Barça will not close anuthing officially before July 1, because it interests them for the deal to be in next season's books rather than the current season's. Despite that, the club's directors want everything tied down before that date, so that the player is mentally free to take on the World Cup with France, as he's expressed a desire to do. Barça have three moment ahead of them to speed up the negoatiations and sort everything out.