Barca clearly feel Rakitic is indispensable.
Ever since Ivan Rakitic joined Barcelona from Sevilla in 2014, his importance in the team has grown season upon season, to the point where the club feel he is indispensable.
It has been claimed that Rakitic holds a pact with Barcelona regarding Paris Saint-Germain, who were interested in signing him during the summer.
PSG bid £90 million for the midfielder this summer and Barcelona took drastic action to prevent him from making the move to the French champions.
According to Catalan newspaper Sport, Barca promised Rakitic that he would be included in the starting XI in every match if he decided to turn down PSG’s advances.
Rakitic could have earned more money at the mega-rich Ligue 1 club, but the promise to make him an ever-present starter convinced him to stay put.
Barcelona have already lost one key player to the unfathomable wealth of PSG, when Neymar moved to Paris in the summer of 2017 for a world record €220m.
The Croatian has only been left out of the match-day squad three times since signing for Barca, two of those occasions being Copa del Rey clashes. He also maintains an excellent injury record.
Although, ironically, he is currently ruled out of action with a hamstring injury sustained international duty, playing against Spain.
