Arsenal: Can Sandro Rosell and Barcelona Save Face over the Fabregas Drama?

At last, Barcelona President Sandro Rosell has realized that they will have to start the new season without Cesc Fabregas. He has tried his best to save his face in an interview by stating that Arsenal officials are hurt about the hot pursuit of the player by Barcelona and The Gunners would not sell him at all. He also stated that he would never pay €60 or €70 million for the player.

Sandro Rosell said to Catalan TV3 "Arsenal feel very hurt by Barça. They don't want to listen to offers or sell and they are not putting the player on the market. There was a strong dispute a few months ago and they have not forgotten it. He will come, even if it is not now, it will be next year. We will see. One thing that is certain is that we will not be throwing the house at trying to sign him. No shareholder would pay €60m or €70m for him. We would only pay his value in the transfer market."

In the last few months, the then Barcelona President and a number of players just talked about Fabregas coming to the Catalan Club. They even put an offer on the table that looked like an insult to the Arsenal officials as the price was too low.

In the recently concluded President election in Barcelona club, bringing Fabregas back was a hot issue and Sandro Rosell also talked about it during the election campaign. This way, they just made relationship with Arsenal officials very sour.

After taking office as president, Sandro Rosell went to South Africa to talk to Arsene Wenger about the issue but nothing positive happened for Barcelona. The main sticking point seems to be the price of the player.

Arsenal officials feel that they are under no financial pressure to sell Fabregas who is their captain and best player. If they have to sell then they should sell a very good price for the player. On the other hand, Sandro Rosell has today very frankly stated that Fabregas is not that much of a good player that Barcelona would wish to pay €60 or €70 million to buy him.

Thus, it is very clear that Sandro Rosell and his colleagues do not consider Fabregas to be at the rank of Rooney or Ronaldo. Instead, they think Fabregas to be just above the average and pay in the range of €30 or €40 million.

So, it is logical to ask that why Sandro Rosell and his team carried out such an intensive and public media campaign in the last few months to get Fabregas at Barcelona when Mr. Rosell himself thinks that Cesc Fabregas is not that much a valuable player!

The funny thing is that it is Barcelona who are under financial stress not Arsenal. In the last few years, Arsenal sold Alyaksandr Hleb and Henry to Barcelona. So, the two clubs had good relationship but Barcelona just managed to make at least some top officials of Arsenal extremely annoyed over the whole Fabregas drama.