Bradley Barcola Tells PSG He Will Not Sign New Deal as Liverpool Prepare Approach

Bradley Barcola has told Paris Saint-Germain he will not sign a new contract, and Liverpool are preparing to test the club’s resolve with an opening offer. The 23 year old has two years left on his current deal and has grown frustrated at a lack of game time in the biggest matches, a stance that has turned one of Europe’s most sought after wingers into the most contested name of the closing weeks of the transfer window.

After preliminary talks with his representatives, Liverpool have prepared an opening offer and are set to formalise their interest with an official approach to PSG. Signing a winger has been a priority for the Merseyside club following Mohamed Salah’s departure, and Barcola has been on their radar for a number of years.

A Bench Role After Back to Back European Titles

Barcola’s frustration traces back to a season in which PSG won the Champions League for a second successive year without him starting either final. Khvicha Kvaratskhelia’s arrival from Napoli in January 2025 established the Georgian as PSG’s first choice on the left, pushing Barcola into a squad rotation role even as he won nine major trophies with the club across the last two seasons. He has decided he does not want to spend another season fighting for that place from the bench.

The opportunity to join Liverpool is said to appeal to the player. PSG bought Barcola for around £40m from Lyon in 2023, and the key to any deal moving forward will be the French club’s willingness to reduce their valuation. Sky Sports News reported this week that PSG value the France international as high as £145m, though other reporting has placed the figure closer to £128.5m.

Barcola’s international career has followed just as fast a trajectory as his rise at club level. He made his senior France debut in September 2023 against Ireland in a Euro 2024 qualifier and scored on that first appearance. Never previously capped at a major tournament before that summer, he was included in Didier Deschamps’ squad for Euro 2024 in Germany after a strong finish to that season, appearing as a substitute in the quarter final and successfully converting France’s fourth penalty in the shoot out. He has gone on to win 14 caps and score twice for his country.

Why Liverpool See Him as a Fit

The identity of Liverpool’s new head coach is worth noting here. Andoni Iraola’s teams at Bournemouth and Rayo Vallecano were built around pace, energy and non stop work rate from wide areas, and Barcola’s profile fits that pattern closely. He offers searing acceleration and directness in behind opposition full backs, qualities that were central to Iraola’s sides long before he arrived at Anfield this summer.

Barcola’s skill set was honed under Luis Enrique at PSG, where his physical intensity and intelligence in transition made him a key outlet even in a rotating role. He has already achieved plenty in his career to date, but at 23, with a World Cup and multiple Champions League campaigns still ahead of him, those close to the situation believe there is significantly more still to come from him as a player.

Arsenal Circling Too

Liverpool are not alone in their interest. Arsenal also hold an interest in Barcola, and their pursuit has taken on fresh significance after Real Madrid confirmed that Vinicius Junior will stay in the Spanish capital beyond this summer, ending any hope in north London of prising the Brazilian away.

Sky Sports News’ Dharmesh Sheth explained how Arsenal’s transfer strategy under sporting director Andrea Berta works: “Arsenal will continue to keep an eye on Vinicius Jr’s situation still. He hasn’t signed that new contract yet. As it stands, he has a year left on his contract. That’s why they are exploring the conditions of a possible deal. How Andrea Berta does his business at Arsenal is very clear. It’s not about one target and then the risk of that target not coming. They try to get their ducks in a row with three or four deals, get as far down the line as they can with as many targets as possible, and then decide which player they are going to go for.”

Sheth added that Barcola is one of the names on that list: “One of those players is Bradley Barcola. He’s intimated to PSG that he’s not going to sign a new contract. That’s primarily because in the biggest games last season, he was on the bench. He doesn’t want to go through that again. It looks like he could become available for a transfer.”

Berta was appointed Arsenal’s sporting director in March 2025, succeeding Edu after almost 12 years at Atletico Madrid, where he built squads that won two LaLiga titles, the Europa League and the Copa del Rey, and reached two Champions League finals. He brought Rodri, Antoine Griezmann and Jan Oblak to the club across that spell, and his reputation for identifying value in the market is a large part of why Arsenal have been linked with such a wide spread of attacking targets this summer rather than fixating on a single name.

A Valuation Gap That Still Needs Closing

None of this means a transfer is close to being finalised. PSG’s asking price, wherever it settles between the figures being reported, represents a significant increase on the fee they paid Lyon just three years ago, and clubs do not always reduce their valuation simply because a player has made his feelings known. Barcola’s contract situation gives Liverpool and Arsenal a stronger hand of a kind, in that PSG risk losing him for a reduced fee next summer or for nothing the year after that, but that stronger hand does not guarantee a lower price this window.

What is clear is the direction of travel. A player who has just won back to back Champions League titles, who has represented France at international level, and who still has two years on his contract, has told one of European football’s superclubs that he wants out. Liverpool’s opening offer, once it lands, will be the first real test of whether PSG intend to negotiate or hold firm and gamble on persuading Barcola to change his mind.

The Wider Rebuild at Anfield

Liverpool’s pursuit of Barcola comes in a summer of transition on Merseyside. Iraola took charge of his first match as head coach in a 4-2 pre-season win over Sunderland in Nashville, beginning life after Arne Slot’s departure with a squad still being reshaped around his own attacking principles. A winger of Barcola’s speed and directness would give the Spaniard a familiar profile to build around, echoing the wide players who defined his most successful sides in Spain.

The club have already broken their transfer record this summer to sign Florian Wirtz from Bayer Leverkusen in a deal that could rise to £116m, a fee that overtook the £85m Liverpool paid for Darwin Nunez in 2022. Right back Jeremie Frimpong followed his Leverkusen team mate to Anfield in a separate £34m move. Adding Barcola to that group would give Iraola a third significant attacking addition from continental Europe inside a single window, each recruited with the pace and directness that defined his approach long before he took charge at Anfield.

Time is not unlimited for either side. The Premier League transfer window closes on 1 September, and PSG begin their own domestic season within weeks, giving both Liverpool and Arsenal a narrow but workable stretch to convert interest into an actual deal. A player who has told his club he will not sign fresh terms, and who has the backing of two Premier League sides with the resources to meet a fee somewhere near PSG’s valuation, is not usually left to see out the window untouched.

For Barcola, the calculation is simpler. He has already won almost everything available to him in France, but not always from a starting position, and at 23 he wants assurances that his next move offers regular football rather than another season of fighting for a place on the bench of a club with bigger ambitions than his role within it. Whether that next move is to Liverpool, to Arsenal, or nowhere at all this summer now depends on how quickly PSG are willing to move off their initial valuation.