Barcelona president Joan Laporta has confirmed that he does not intend to sell Dutch midfielder Frenkie de Jong to Manchester United, despite acknowledging that the financial crisis may require the sale of some players.
At the same time, Laporta described Cristiano Ronaldo’s desire to leave Manchester United as “interesting”, but he would not be carried away by talk of his club’s interest in the Portuguese international.
De Jong, who starred in Ajax under his compatriot Eric Ten Hag when the latter was coaching Ajax, is one of Man United’s most important goals in the summer transfer market following Ten Hag took over the team last April.
While the midfielder expressed his desire to stay in Barcelona last May, the club’s need to reduce players’ salaries raised the stakes in selling players.
Laporta said – last week – that he “will do everything in his power to keep De Jong”, but the Dutch international knows that he must agree to a salary adjustment in order to remain at the “Camp Nou”.
The Catalan club president repeated his statements – today, Wednesday – during his presentation of Ivory Coast Frank Kessie (the new player in the team); He said of De Jong, “He is a Barcelona player and if there is no need, we will not sell him, we do not want to sell him.” “We know he has offers, but at the moment we will not sell this player.”
While Ten Hag sees de Jong as the ideal player in his plan for the “Red Devils”, it has become necessary to know the fate of Ronaldo and his continuation at “Old Trafford”, following reports spread last week of his request to leave, to join a team participating in the Champions League.
Ronaldo scored 24 goals for Manchester United in all the competitions that the team participated in, but the club finished last season in sixth place in the English Premier League, with the lowest score for the team in its history by 58 points.
But Laporta refused to be tempted to talk regarding the possibility of Barcelona taking a big step to include the 37-year-old Portuguese star, who starred with traditional rivals Real Madrid and won the Champions League title 4 times.
“Last Monday I had dinner with Jorge Mendes (Ronaldo’s agent) and we talked regarding the transfer market in general,” Laporta added.
He continued: “Cristiano? I will not talk regarding the players who were not present at the meeting, but it is always important to know the names in the market.”
He concluded by saying, “I will not talk regarding players in one way or another and this may be misunderstood, and this will not be in the interest of Barcelona, and we must respect the players who have contracts with other clubs.”