Despite leaving Barcelona in January 2020, former defender Jean-Clair Todibo still remains a valuable asset for the team, as his consistent performance for OGC Nice this season has attracted plenty of interest.
According to a recent report by transfer market specialist Fabrizio Romano, scouts from Newcastle United, Manchester United and Liverpool were in attendance during Nice’s 2-1 win over Rennes and the agenda was to make a report on Todibo.
The journalist is expecting that Todibo, 23, could earn a move to a top club this summer ‘with a price tag understood to be around €45 million’.
If Nice manage to coup the aforementioned amount, the Ligue 1 team will be liable to pay Barcelona somewhere around €9 million as the Blaugrana have 20% rights on his future sale.
The 23-year-old defender has been quite a journeyman in his career, to say the very least. After moving to Barcelona on a free transfer from Toulouse in 2019, he moved to Schalke on loan, followed by another temporary tenure with Benfica in Portugal, with an option to purchase for €20 million.
In February 2021, he joined Nice with yet another option to buy. Towards the end of the season, the French team made his acquisition permanent for €8.5 million (+€7 million in variables).
The 23-year-old, who holds the record for fastest red card in Ligue 1 history (nine seconds), has made quite an impact at Nice this season, clocking a total of 3,737 minutes across 42 appearances, translating to an average of just over 88 minutes per game.
Interestingly enough, the aforementioned Premier League sides are not the only teams vying for his signature, as Ligue 1 leaders, Paris-Saint Germain are also said to be in the race.
Considering that the defender is being monitored by multiple teams, Nice can coup a decent price and the higher they go, the better will be for Barcelona.