Brighton’s Carlos Baleba faces fitness doubt ahead of new season with ankle injury

Carlos Baleba is not having the easiest relationship with his own body right now. The Brighton & Hove Albion midfielder is doubtful for the start of the new season after picking up an ankle injury, the latest in a string of physical setbacks that have interrupted what should be the most explosive years of a very promising career.

For a player valued somewhere between £80 million and £100 million, that is a lot of games spent watching from the treatment room.

A pattern of interruptions

Baleba is 22 years old, born January 3, 2004, and already carries the kind of transfer valuation that most players never see in a lifetime. Brighton pegged his worth in that £80M to £100M range. Manchester United were among the clubs circling, though that interest has since cooled.

The ankle issue is the newest entry in what has become an uncomfortable injury log. In late 2024, a knee problem cut into his preseason preparation and limited his playing time. Early 2025 brought a muscle injury that raised fresh concerns about his availability. Now, heading into the 2026/27 season, it is the ankle that is causing Brighton’s coaching staff to pump the brakes on expectations for his involvement in the opening weeks.

What this means for Brighton’s season

If Baleba’s ankle keeps him out of the opening fixtures, Brighton will need to cover his role in midfield without him. Every match Baleba misses is a datapoint that a negotiating counterpart will use to push the price down.

Manchester United’s cooled interest may or may not be directly connected to the fitness concerns, but the timing is notable.

The digital footnote

There is one corner of the crypto world where Baleba’s name does appear, though calling it a market signal would be generous. A Sorare NFT card representing Baleba exists on the Ethereum blockchain, with reported sales in the low single-digit dollar range. Sorare is a fantasy football platform that tokenizes player cards as NFTs.

The Baleba card trading at around $2.44 is about as far from the £80M to £100M Brighton valuation as it is possible to get. The broader sports NFT sector has faced a difficult few years, with trading volumes far below the peaks of the 2021 cycle.

Brighton can hold a nine-figure asking price for the actual player while his tokenized card trades for the cost of a vending machine snack.

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