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By Pete Wilson
2 June 2010
Barcelona have confirmed via their official website that they have now made a formal offer to buy Cesc Fabregas from Arsenal. The Spanish club’s director general, Joan Oliver said: “Everybody knows that Cesc wants to sign for Barca and that we also want him to come here, but there is also a third party involved – Arsenal.
“Any agreement has to be with them. The official window for transfer negotiations opened on June 1st and although we’d had unofficial conversations with them before yesterday, we’ve now made a formal written offer, which we presented to Arsenal yesterday afternoon”.
The club’s vice-president, Rafael Yuste, added: “I’m optimistic that he’ll be able to sign for Barca as soon as possible and it’s clear that everybody here will give him a warm welcome. We’ll do nothing that might make it more difficult for him to come here and we won’t rush things – but we won’t stop either!”
Arsenal are resigned to losing the player and it is understood that manager Arsene Wenger has told Fabregas he will get his move to the Nou Camp this summer, as long as Arsenal can agree an acceptable fee, likely to be in the £30m-£40m region.
The club are officially maintaining for now that the player is not for sale, saying in a statement: “We immediately and resolutely told [Barca] once again that we have no intention of selling our captain. To be clear, we will not make any kind of counterproposal or enter into any discussion. Barcelona have publicly stated that they will respect our position and we expect that they will keep their word.”
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