Atletico Madrid have made it clear the club is not ready to let Julian Alvarez go, accusing Barcelona of running a “smear campaign” and “fake news” over attempts to sign the Argentine striker. Barcelona who completed the £69m signing of Newcastle’s Antony Gordon on Friday, are reportedly interested in signing Alvarez for next season.
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However, Diego Simeone’s side insist the 26-year-old, who has scored 20 goals in all competitions in 49 games this season, is not for sale and value him as high as £130m. The club took to social media to mock reports of Barcelona’s bid for Julian Alvarez with a series of posts featuring Barca stars Lamine Yamal, Pedri and Raphinha in Atletico shirts. Atleti’s posts included joke bids for each of the three Barca players, including the offer of Bad Bunny concert tickets, an annual subscription and bag of sunflower seeds for Yamal.
“HERE WE GO! We have sent a fax to @FCBarcelona_es with our transfer offer: 4 tickets for tomorrow’s Bad Bunny concert, an annual subscription to ABC, and a bag of sunflower seeds. We eagerly await the response to prepare the ‘announce’,” the post on Yamal said.
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“HERE WE GO! And to complete the 3×1, we’ve gotten all carried away and we’re going to throw the little house out the window: the player arrives on loan for a season and in exchange we loan out Tom Ford and Smith with no option to buy. An offer impossible to refuse,” Atleti wrote on Raphinha.
“Don’t believe everything you see, especially if it’s related to Barça,” the club added on the Brazil forward.
On Pedri, Atletico Madrid wrote, “We live in an era where reality can be altered.”
Finally, Atleti went on to deny reports of making any offer to Barcelona’s sporting director Deco, insisting the club would never do something like that.
“Finally, we want to take this opportunity to categorically deny that we have made an offer to the sporting director of FC Barcelona to join our scouting team in the Brazilian market,” the post said.
The club added: “No, Atlético de Madrid would never do something like that. However, over the past few months we have been subjected to a relentless smear campaign against one of our players. Calculated leaks, fake news, constant disrespect, the culé version of the propaganda machine inventing little stories, phone calls before head-to-head clashes…
“But of course, it would never occur to us either to have the vice president of the referees on the payroll or to rely on political favors to register players. RESPECT and VALUES.”
Barcelona have declined to make any comment as of the time of making this report.
