Former Barcelona board member Joan Soler has confirmed that Chelsea made a ‘very significant’ offer to sign Fermin Lopez last summer.
A possible big-money deal for Lopez had also been mooted throughout the window and reports emanating out of Spain claimed the Club World Cup holders had tested Barcelona’s resolve with a ‘dizzying’ bid for the Spain international.
However, the Spanish champions made it clear they had no intention of losing their La Masia academy graduate and the 22-year-old decided to stay put in order to fight for a regular starting berth at the Camp Nou, and he has gone on to rack up 11 goals and 12 assists in 32 appearances for Barca this season.
‘There was a very significant offer for Fermin from CHELSEA in the summer, but the player didn’t want to leave and we didn’t want to sell,’ Soler, who recently stepped down from his position on the board at Barcelona, explained to Cadena SER.
‘Barca shouldn’t be a selling club and we have to retain our homegrown players. We also had a €250m offer to sell Lamine Yamal in recent years. It came through agents and that deal didn’t go through either.’
‘Keeping Lamine and the talented youngsters has been a success for Deco,’ he added. They’ve all had great offers and preferred to stay. They feel the club is theirs and we’ve managed to create a club where the players feel like they belong.
‘That is very important for achieving success.’
IcChelseaNews says…
Lopez is showing just why we were interested in the summer, he has been brilliant this season so it is a shame that we could not get a transfer deal done, as we said, he would have been a brilliant signing for the club.
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