Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford has completed a season-long loan move to Barcelona, describing his new side as “a club where dreams come true”.
The agreed loan deal is for the 2025/26 season with an option to buy him next summer. Sky Sports News understands the option price is around £26m (€30m).
Rashford will wear the No 14 shirt.
“I’m very excited,” Rashford said at his unveiling. “It’s a club where dreams come true. They win big prizes and what the club stands for really means a lot to me.
“It feels like I’m at home and it’s a big factor in my choice to come here.
“It’s a family club and people are comfortable here. It’s a good place for good players to showcase their skills.”
A Barcelona statement said: “FC Barcelona and Manchester United have reached an agreement for the loan of the player Marcus Rashford until 30 June 2026. The agreement also establishes an option to buy the English forward.
“The player has signed his contract as a Barça player this afternoon at a private meeting in the presence of the FC Barcelona president, Joan Laporta; the director of the Football Area, and other Board members.”
Barcelona are expected to cover all of Rashford’s wages during the proposed loan, although they are currently unable to register the forward due to LaLiga’s financial rules.
The Spanish champions are deemed to have spent more on signings and wages than they made in revenue for the 2024/25 season.
LaLiga’s rules dictate that clubs can only spend as much as they generate, so Barcelona will be required to make sales, cut wages or increase their revenue streams to make space for new signings.
The deadline for this issue to be resolved is the end of August. Barcelona are confident of registering Rashford and their other new signings in time for the new season.
Despite their long-standing financial issues, the Catalan club have always eventually been able to register their new signings in time despite these challenges.
England international Rashford had publicly said he would like to play for the Catalans this summer and had been interested in a move to the LaLiga champions in January, before joining Aston Villa on loan.
Rashford’s move is understood to have been given the green light by Barca head coach Hansi Flick after he spoke with the player.
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Marcus Rashford heaped praise on Lamine Yamal and revealed his desire ‘to play with the best’. (Credit: xBuyer YouTube channel/Javi Ruiz)
It is thought Liverpool forward Luis Diaz was a priority target, but Barcelona’s advances were rejected earlier in the window.
The academy graduate is one of five players who have been given extra time off to explore potential moves away this summer.
Rashford’s career at Old Trafford has appeared to be over since Ruben Amorim claimed he would rather put his 63-year-old goalkeeper coach on the bench than the forward because of what he considers a lack of effort.
However, Rashford declined to criticise Man Utd when it was put to him the Old Trafford club, rather than him, were at fault for causing the situation which has led to his departure.
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Marcus Rashford is asked if he or Manchester United were the problem over the last few years, during his unveiling at Barcelona.
“The situation with Man Utd, the club is in a period of change, and they have been for a while,” he said.
“I don’t have anything bad to say about Man Utd. It’s been an important part of not only my career but my life.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to play for them but football is the same as life, and not everything goes as simple as you may have thought.
“This is my next step, my next chapter, and I am fully focussed on trying to improve myself and help the team win trophies.
“I just wish Man Utd the best and hope they are successful in the future.”
Rashford: I’ve always been a fan of watching Barcelona play
Rashford picked out Barcelona’s style of play and the influence of their head coach Hansi Flick as contributing factors to his desire to join the Spanish champions.
“I always try to make decisive actions and fast dynamic plays, and I always like good football. I’ve always been a fan of watching Barcelona play from a young age, like most football fans,” he said.
“It’s going to be a joy for me to play here and I am going to enjoy every minute of it. I’m full of excitement and hunger to go out and try and help this team win.
“They won so much last year and I can see the ambition of the club is to do better than last year. For a player, that is what you want to hear because it keeps you improving year on year, and that is what you need to be the best version of yourself.
“”Hansi Flick is another key factor in the reason I’m here.
“The conversations I had with him were very positive and what he did last year was a terrific season, but not just last year. In his career he has proved he is one of the top coaches.
“To lead such a young team to a very successful season and then to come back to pre-season and still want to do more, it shows me everything I thought I knew about the club, but now, to be here, it is everything I wished and thought.
“I’m eager to get going now and learn the Barcelona way as I go.”
‘Rashford may have found his calling at Barca’
Sky Sports News reporter Gary Cotterill in Barcelona:
As we know, Barcelona is more than a club. On his big day at the Nou Camp, Marcus Rashford was more than impressive.
Smiling. Suited and booted, and his answers to dozens of questions were tailor made. Tailor made to look forward, not back.
There were journalists who’d travelled from England to be here, me included. All of them were trying to catch the eye of the Barcelona press officer, but none were allowed a question. The feeling being that local reporters would ask about Barcelona, not Manchester United.
And that’s how it turned out.
The club’s new No 14 said everything a Barcelona fan would want to hear about the place where ‘dreams come true’.
When he was finally asked one solitary question about his parent club, he controlled it beautifully, turned on a sixpence (our euro) and hammered it into the top of the net.
“I’ve nothing bad to say,” he said. 1-0 to the media chiefs.
The only slight hiccup Rashford made all day was timekeeping. He arrived 15 minutes late for the contract signing ceremony, but no one seemed to mind.
The first Englishman to play for Barcelona since Gary Lineker posed near an old English telephone box as part of his official club video.
Apt.
Because at his media unveiling, Marcus Rashford rang the right tone and kept everyone engaged. He may well have found his calling.
Rashford the big winner
Marcus Rashford is set for a loan move to Barcelona
Sky Sports Football’s Nick Wright:
Manchester United get a player with no future under Ruben Amorim off their books and free up considerable space on their wage bill. Barcelona acquire a potentially world-class forward without having to commit to signing him on a permanent deal.
But the biggest winner in Marcus Rashford’s move from Old Trafford to Camp Nou on loan with an option to buy is the player himself. He swaps a side that finished 15th in the Premier League last term for one which won a domestic double and rank among this season’s favourites to win the Champions League.
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