FC Barcelona have reached a deal with Ivan Rakitic which will see him sign on until 2020-21. The club’s sporting director and his agent, Arturo Canales, have been negotiating the contract for a while and SPORT have learned that now it has become a reality. Conversations began at the end of last year and now, two months later, it is ready to be announced.

The club intend to make it official in the coming weeks, when the situation of the first team has stabilised because to do so now would be counter productive. The renovation of Rakitic is likely to be announced before the next FIFA break in late March.

Four more years. Rakitic will see his salary improve, as he had been promised. He turns 29 in March and the new deal will see him end his time at Barcelona at 33 years. His current deal was set to expire on June 30, 2019, which would have made him a transfer target for many sides in the summer.

Rakitic has had various offers from other clubs, thanks to his fine performances in his first two years at Barcelona, and also because of his goal in the Champions League final in Berlin.

Juventus is one of the sides that has asked for him and other Premier League teams have rang the bell for him too. However he wants to stay at Barcelona, even though this season he has not been used as much as in previous years.

He doesn’t know if he will retire a Barcelona player, but in this way it gives him a better deal and the club can let him go if a good offer arrives regardless of the new contract length.

Rakitic arrived in 2014 from Sevilla for 18m euros and 3m more in variables, including the loan of Denis Suarez to the Andalusian club.