Arsenal rejected Barcelona’s opening bid in the fight to land Spain midfielder Cesc Fabregas on Wednesday.
Fabregas has made it clear to Gunners manager Arsene Wenger that he wants to rejoin Barca before the start of next season and Barcelona have declared their interest by making a “serious” offer for the Arsenal captain.
Wenger has no intention of losing Fabregas without a fight, however, and the English Premier League club responded to Barca’s bid with a strongly-worded statement calling on Josep Guardiola’s team to drop their interest in the player.
“Arsenal captain Cesc Fabregas is under contract with the club until the summer of 2015. He is a highly-valued member of the team and part of our future plans,” the statement said. “We have followed recent speculation linking Cesc with a move away from the club, but as there has never been any official approach for him, only two informal exchanges, in which we made it abundantly clear that we have no interest in transferring Cesc, we have refrained from publicly passing comment.”
“However, yesterday evening [Tuesday] we received an offer from Barcelona for Cesc and in response, we immediately and resolutely told them once again that we have no intention of selling our captain,” the statement said.
Despite Arsenal’s desire to retain their prize asset, Barcelona have been courting Fabregas for some time and will still believe he can be brought back to the Camp Nou, where he was part of the club’s youth set-up before joining the Gunners aged 16.
Barcelona director general Joan Oliver said on the club’s Website on Wednesday: “Yesterday [Tuesday] afternoon we made a serious, written offer to Arsenal” for Fabregas.
“Everyone knows that Cesc wants to play at Barca and they also know that we want to sign him, but the third factor in this equation is Arsenal. Any agreement has to go through them,” he said.
Reports suggest Barcelona have offered 29 million euros (US$36 million) for the player.
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