Barcelona cancel Joao Cancelo presentation and delete signing announcement

Barcelona announced the signing of Joao Cancelo on Monday, but as the press assembled for his official presentation, the event was cancelled. The Portuguese defender is expected to join the Blaugrana on loan until the end of the season from Saudi Arabian side Al-Hilal.

Cancelo flew into Barcelona on Monday, and passed his medical. The club announced that the official signing act would take place at 13:00 CEST on Tuesday, and a press conference was to take place afterwards. However minutes after the press conference was due to start, it was cancelled, and the announcements of Cancelo’s return were deleted.

Problems with Cancelo documentation

According to Sport, the twist comes down to the documentation of the deal. Al-Hilal have demanded that Barcelona send some final papers with the required signatures in order for the deal to be completed. The club communicated that this occurred at the last moment.

Barcelona insist Cancelo signing will go ahead

Nevertheless, Barcelona insist that the signing will go ahead without issue. Initially, the story from the club was that Cancelo would go ahead once the documentation had been resolved. Now the story is that Cancelo will be presented to the press at 16:45 CEST, and the delay is due to a personal lunch that Cancelo had organised. Despite this, the press had been gathered for two hours before the club informed them of the delay.

FC Barcelona had 66% ball possession during the 5-0 win against Real Madrid back in 2010. On Sunday, Hansi Flick's Barça reached an even better number of 68%. [@xavierbosch] pic.twitter.com/jU4kvI9GKg

— barcacentre (@barcacentre) January 13, 2026

Cancelo’s arrival at Barcelona

Barcelona have activated the emergency injury rule in order to use 80% of Andreas Christensen’s salary limit space on a replacement. That space will be allocated to Cancelo, and the Catalan giants are expected to pay around €5m to have the 31-year-old until the end of the season. That will cover more than half of his salary in Saudi Arabia for the year, where he was due €7.5m until the summer.

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