Teenage Mali forward Ibrahim Diarra will arrive in Barcelona this week to settle permanently in the city, 10 months after it emerged he was destined for the Catalan club.
Diarra, 17, joins from the Africa Foot Academy, with whom Barcelona have a partnership agreement, and they announced in January that the left-footed right-winger/attacking midfielder would be moving there.
The player was signed with a view to training between the Juvenil A (under-19) team and Barca Atletic (the club’s second team who play in the Spanish third tier), but hopes are high that he will make it to the first team. Diarra could not move when the deal was first made public in January because football’s world governing body FIFA does not allow clubs to sign non-EU players who are minors.
FIFA rules dictate that, until his 18th birthday in December 2024, Diarra could spend one month in two periods of 15 days training with Barcelona to help him adapt.
The club saved the second period for the end of November so that the player could settle definitively in Barcelona, and club sources — who, like others cited in the piece, wished to remain anonymous to protect their positions — have told The Athletic the move is now set to be completed.
Financial reports that the club publish every season showed that Diarra cost around €1.7million (£1.4m, $1.8m).
The Athletic has been told that, in 2023, Diarra trained for a short period with the youth team in total secrecy. Those inside the dressing room were impressed with his abilities, and when Diarra trained with Barca Atletic in 2024 he integrated quickly, to the point that he is followed on social media by players who were then in the reserve team and are now in the first team, such as Pau Cubarsi and Hector Fort.
The signing was already an open secret when it was made official in January 2024, and the reason for the media coverage of the move was the young winger’s performance in the Under-17 World Cup with Mali. They won the bronze medal at that tournament and he was considered by FIFA to be one of the competition’s best players.
He scored five goals and provided four assists and was the Silver Boot winner. This led to interest from big clubs, some of whom were willing to pay more for him than Barcelona could offer. By then, however, the Catalan club had already closed the deal.
Diarra is not the only young player from Africa to arrive at Barcelona in recent months. According to Barcelona sources, this week two other players started training with the youth team. They are Mouhamed Dabo and Elhadj Malick Cisse, and both are on trial but have not yet been signed.
Other recent cases are David Oduro and Abdul Aziz Issah, who both made their debuts for Barca Atletic on November 6 against Real Sociedad B.
What is behind all this interest in African football? The answer is a turnaround marked by the needs of a club in a difficult financial situation.
Although Barca appear to be making strides to solve that reality — such as the recently announced Nike deal, limited business in transfer windows and cashing in on La Masia’s prolific production line — the legacy of financial mismanagement over the past decade has been so devastating that it continues to take its toll today.
That is why the club are still looking for ways to continue signing players so it does not affect the quality of the first team. They want to be able to continue bringing in money and reach a normal situation as soon as possible, in which they do not have to wait until the last minute to be able to register players in La Liga.
La Masia stands out above all else in this sense, but clever scouting is also managing to keep the club on its feet. The scouting department is still searching for players where others are not looking and they feel the African market is a good one for them to focus on.
Paulo Araujo, director of scouting at Barcelona and one of the most trusted confidants of club president Joan Laporta and sporting director Deco, is a key part of this strategy. When Araujo arrived, he took charge of professionalising the internal structure of the club in a department that had been neglected for years.
Both Laporta and Deco feel the department is generating money for the club in a way it wasn’t before.
In Barca’s new way of scouting, there are three premises: anticipation, discretion and media silence.
Let’s start with the first one, anticipation.
The African market is not as explored as others and that gives Barca an advantage: to anticipate signings before other clubs look at those players. Reducing competition is one of the objectives Barca set themselves as they are unable to compete with the big financial offers from other major clubs.
Moussa Kone is responsible for the club’s scouting in Africa and Araujo has relied on him in the search for players. Former Barca player and ex-interim boss Sergi Barjuan has also accompanied them on some of the trips to Africa.
It is all part of the club’s commitment to sign younger players. They consider it a win-win because they are cheaper and, if they adapt and work, they will cost little. If they do not adapt and have to leave, they have much more market value. The club know that if they put these young players in for just two or three games with the first team, their value will rise significantly.
Mika Faye is the perfect example. He cost €1.5million in 2023 and was sold to Rennes this summer for €10.3m with a buy-back clause and rights on a future sale of the player.
Discretion and media silence play a fundamental role in this type of operation. The club wanted to emulate the transfer system of some clubs, whereby if a transfer is leaked to the press, they decide not to go ahead. Barca are obsessed with that and warn those involved that the purchase will be dropped if they go to the press.
Barcelona are in one of the most delicate financial situations in their history and they have to be creative to compete with their big European rivals. Only time will tell if their bet on Africa is a gamble that pays off.
(Top photo: Robertus Pudyanto – FIFA via Getty Images)
