Barcelona responds to Atletico's disgust: you have crossed the red line
Tension between Barcelona and Atletico Madrid erupted over Julian Alvarez on Thursday evening in Monaco, during the league phase draw of the UEFA Champions League.
The newspaper "Sport" reported that Miguel Angel Gil Marin, the chief executive of Atletico Madrid, fired the first shots at the Catalan club.
Minutes later, Rafa Yuste hit back with equal force to defend Barcelona's position in an affair that revolves around Julian Alvarez's future.
Gil Marin got in first. He appeared on Movistar+ with a strongly worded message about the situation of the Argentine striker.
He said: "Julian is already suffering, because there are people who have devoted their efforts to deceiving and confusing him. I am sorry, because I know him well, he is a great player and a great person, but he is in a state of total confusion."
The Atletico chief then turned his fire directly on Barcelona, after Joan Laporta had publicly repeated that the Catalan club stood ready to sign the Argentine striker.
Gil Marin said: "This angers us even more, because we are disgusted by Barcelona's falseness and its lack of ethics and professionalism."
He added: "We can only confirm that we will not negotiate with Barcelona under any circumstances. As the general director and the person chiefly responsible for running the club, I have everyone's support. The player will not be sold to Barcelona."
Rafa Yuste does not back down
Barcelona did not take long to respond. Rafa Yuste, the club's vice-president, spoke to the same outlet from Monaco and vented his anger at the accusations Gil Marín had aimed at him.
Yuste said: "What surprises me is that, knowing him, he was able to make these statements that lack manners and respect. He crossed a red line that I do not understand at all. These are statements that anger me and that I do not share."
Defending Barcelona's conduct, Yuste stressed that the club believes it did nothing wrong in its pursuit of Julián Álvarez.
"We are a club that respects the opponent, that respects Atlético Madrid and the players," he explained. "If a player wants to come to a club, we will try to sign him."
The vice-president also touched on the meeting he had held earlier with Enrique Cerezo and members of the Gil family.
He said: "We exchanged greetings, because a person must have manners in life. We exchanged some words with the Gil family and president Cerezo, and I told them what I said before: we are calm and our conscience is clear."
With the transfer window days from closing, Barcelona still refuse to accept the Julián Álvarez deal is dead. Atlético Madrid, meanwhile, hold firm: they will never negotiate the player's transfer with the Catalan club.
