DE LIGT REVEALED AS BARCELONA TARGET

Juventus defender Matthijs De Ligt is reportedly a major transfer target for Spanish La Liga giants Barcelona. This is according to the report from Italian football publication La Gazzetta dello Sport. It was disclosed that the Catalan giants don't have any release clause to work with in their quest to sign the Dutch national team player. This means that De Ligt don’t have a release clause in his contract at Juventus. The centre back is said to be number one target for Barcelona ahead of the transfer window next summer.

Barcelona were in the mix to sign De Ligt when he was an Ajax Amsterdam player before the young defender opted to move to Italian football in the colours of Juventus. The Old Lady paid €85m to secure his transfer from Ajax Amsterdam two years ago. According to his agent Mino Raiola, De Ligt opted for Juventus to study and improve defensively in Italian football.

Raiola recently revealed that De Ligt is ready for a new challenge beyond Juventus as he hinted that the player is ready to leave the Old Lady next summer. The aforementioned Italian football publication said that De Ligt is still a Barcelona target from his Ajax Amsterdam days two years ago and that he's their major transfer target for next summer.

The major question for those connected with Barcelona is on raising the cash involved in the transfer of the player. It is said that the Catalans are determined to sign the Dutch defender.

La Gazzetta dello Sport stated that the player will have a release clause of €125m in his Juventus contract as from next summer and that Barcelona are not able to reduce his release clause to €75m to sign him. The Italian publication denied that the Catalan giants can activate the release clause at a lower amount of €75m.