Robert Lewandowski's gamble to hold out for a new Barcelona contract instead of banking a fortune in Saudi Arabia ended up costing him roughly €200 million, according to his long-time agent Pini Zahavi, who has now laid out the financial fallout from one of this year's most dramatic transfer sagas.
Zahavi said Lewandowski turned down a two-year Saudi offer worth around €100 million a season back in January 2026, choosing instead to keep faith with Barcelona even as his contract in Catalonia ticked down toward its June expiry.
"I told him he would not get this offer in summer, but he decided to wait," Zahavi said, according to ONE. Asked why the striker refused such a fortune, the agent was blunt: "Because he wanted to play at Barcelona."
That loyalty was not rewarded. Zahavi said club president Joan Laporta was in favour of keeping Lewandowski for a further season, but sporting director Deco and head coach Hansi Flick would not commit to guaranteeing him a starting role — a condition the 37-year-old considered essential before signing on.
With Barcelona unwilling to renew, Zahavi shopped his client around Europe. Milan and Juventus both made contact, but according to the agent neither Italian giant could match the financial terms Lewandowski was seeking. Porto went further still: club president André Villas-Boas personally phoned the striker to try to bring him to Portugal, only to be turned down.
None of it led anywhere, and Lewandowski left Barcelona as a free agent when his contract expired at the end of June. He eventually found his next chapter far from Europe, agreeing a two-year deal with Chicago Fire in Major League Soccer that runs through the 2027-28 season.
The move made him a Designated Player in MLS, with multiple reports placing his salary among the highest in the league, behind only Inter Miami's Lionel Messi.
Zahavi, the veteran Israeli super-agent who has brokered some of football's biggest deals over four decades, was speaking publicly for the first time about the collapsed Barcelona renewal, filling in a saga that had puzzled observers of the Polish striker's abrupt exit.
For Barcelona, the episode leaves an awkward footnote to Lewandowski's four seasons at the club, in which he won three La Liga titles and a Copa del Rey and twice topped the division's scoring charts, only to leave for nothing once his contract lapsed.
