El Confidencial take a baseball bat on Tuesday to claims from Barcelona that they’re not interested in certain players, and are respecting their clubs. Barcelona’s transfer chief Robert Fernandez was quizzed recently on interest in several players including Hector Bellerin.
Fernandez played down the interest and said: “We always respect the club and the player.”
El Confidencial say this simply isn’t true, in the case of Bellerin and several others. It’s claimed that not only have Barcelona disrespected Arsenal by going behind their back and contacting the defender, but they also went behind the back of the player’s agent.
It’s explained that Bellerin being called up for the Euro 2016 squad, albeit only because of Dani Carvajal’s injury, has increased his standing in Barcelona circles. El Confidencial say whilst it’s common for agents to be used to contact players to see what the chances of a transfer are, in Bellerin’s case they already know Arsenal would refuse to sell, and so it’s just seen as unsettling.
Aymeric Laporte has also been contacted, according to the claims, and El Confidencial say that’s unnecessary because Barcelona know the conditions to buy him: Pay his clause or he goes nowhere.
Whilst the dynamic of this being Arsenal and Barcelona changes things slightly, clubs and agents have been contacting and unsettling players for years, with El Confidencial often reporting on it, what seems to have irritated them here is Robert Fernandez’s public holier-than-thou stance on it.
