Nico Williams has had a stunning breakthrough tournament for Spain at Euro 2024 and his future is expected to be one of the talking points of the summer.
The Athletic Bilbao winger was the star on the left side of Luis de la Fuente’s three strikers in Germany, tearing teams apart with his speed and direct play.
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He has helped lead them to another European Championship final, where they will play England live on The Pitch Prospect.
And once the tournament is over, there will surely be plenty of clubs ready to take on Williams.
Here The Pitch Prospect.com takes a look at the contenders for Williams’ signature.
Barcelona
The clear favorite to sign Williams this summer is Barcelona.
The LaLiga giant has identified the 21-year-old as a priority target and is keen to renew its excellent international partnership with Lamine Yamal.
For Spain, Williams and the 17-year-old have built a good bond and complement each other very well.
LaLiga president Javier Tebas confirmed that his contract contains a release clause and Barcelona could sign him.
This is because the company is close to sorting out its financial situation, which has limited its ability to sign players.
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Regarding Williams, Tebas said: “One must assume that Barcelona is perfectly capable of signing a player like Nico Williams, given its efforts to reduce salary costs by more than 200 million and other measures already taken within the club that have nothing to do with the levers.”
“Barca will be able to reach these amounts and that is perfectly acceptable if they are in the 1:1 range. The club has a turnover of almost a billion, it can be in that range.”
So if Barcelona can continue to reduce their salary costs, the club will be able to sign Williams.
arsenal
The Pitch Prospect reckons Arsenal are among the teams hot on Williams’ heels following his strong season for Bilbao.
The winger has been directly involved in 19 goals in the league and is a player that Mikel Arteta admires.
Gabriel Martinelli wasn’t at his best last year, so a new left winger is an option for the Gunners.
However, the main problem for Arsenal in signing Williams is his alleged salary.
Since Bilbao only recruits players from the Basque Country, the club does not spend much but earns a lot on the transfer market and can invest its money in salaries.
As a result, he earns around £180,000 a week, which could be a deal breaker for the Gunners, especially as he would compete with Martinelli and Leandro Trossard for playing time.
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Chelsea
TalkSPORT understands that Chelsea are keen to sign Williams.
The Blues already have a wide variety of attacking options, but if they decide to move on, there should be room in Enzo Maresca’s squad for this incredibly exciting winger.
However, it will be difficult for the Blues to convince the winger to join them, as they can only gain match practice in the Europa Conference League.
Barcelona and Arsenal can now offer Champions League football.
Currently, the Blues’ interest has not yet turned into a formal offer and they will likely wait and see what happens with Barcelona and Williams before deciding to take things further.
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Liverpool
TalkSPORT has also learned that Liverpool are also interested, but have two hurdles to overcome in signing the Spaniard.
Firstly, his salary is likely to cause them problems as he would automatically become one of the Reds’ highest-paid players.
In addition, Liverpool have numerous players who can operate on the left side, including Luis Diaz, Cody Gakpo and Diogo Jota.
So unless one of them leaves, it is hard to imagine Arne Slot’s men finding room for Williams, although his £47m release clause sounds tempting.
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Athletic Bilbao
Of course, there is still a strong possibility that Williams will stay in Bilbao and according to their recent statement, they are determined to keep him.
They said: “Nico, a footballer very committed to Athletic Club, was bombarded with questions about his future in an excessive and uncontrolled manner by the Spanish Football Federation, while he was focused on participating in the European Championship and the Federation did not know how to protect him.
“Athletic strives for the maximum, without limits. We show that we have an attractive and successful project for our players and our coach. The proof is that we recently renewed the contracts of two of our international players, Simón (2029) and Vivian (2031), Nico.
“He signed last year until 2027 and sought-after players such as Oihan Sancet, Benat Prados, Julen Agirrezabala and Aitor Paredes have also been signed for multiple seasons, to name a few examples.
“Athletic Club is economically, socially and sportingly capable of retaining footballers of the calibre of those mentioned in its structure, including Nico Williams.”