The Fans Football Blog3

Few minutes before 11 am this morning, a meeting between Barcelona sports director Txiki Begiristain and Josep Maria Mesalles, the agent of Barcelona forward and Cameroon international Samuel Eto'o (28), has started.

After a one-hour meeting, Mesalles said to journalists that Eto'o wishes to continue although nothing can be excluded: "The club wants the player and the player wants to fulfil his contract. Both Barça and we know that the player has a contract and they know it's a great player.

We'll continue next season and we'll see what happens later. If they will offer us a renewal, we'll look at the offer because Samuel is happy here, there's no better place to live and he doesn't feel any need to leave. We certainly won't actively look for another club.

We're very happy at the club and the relationship is good but until 31 August you cannot exclude anything because some fool can come, pay his buyout clause and offer us 15 instead of 5. If an interesting offer for both the club and the player comes in, we'll also take a look at it. We're open to everything and I'm aware of the great value of Eto'o. He has won two Champions Leagues, three Liga and one Copa, I guess that you don't have to say much more.

I nevertheless want to stress that the situation is different than the one of last year. Back then, Guardiola made clear that he didn't count on Samuel. This didn't happen this year and we know that the opinion of the club and the coach isn't the same as last summer. Txiki now didn't tell us that Pep doesn't want him.

There are clubs that have shown interest in him but it's forbidden for us to listen to offers. There might be people that are calling you but that doesn't mean that you want to leave. Inter? We didn't receive a call from then and the meeting between Laporta and Moratti wasn't about Eto'o. Real Madrid? We didn't talk with them either. Eto'o is now focusing on his national team, after that he'll have holidays for three weeks and then he'll start training with Barcelona."

Read more:
Meeting with Inter on Ibrahimovic: A reconstruction
Barcelona considering how to get Forlan
Manchester City confident of signing Eto'o soon