The Fans Football Blog3

Catalan sports paper Sport claims that Barcelona president Joan Laporta has spoken to Bayern Munich attacker and French international Franck Ribéry (26) last week.

Laporta called Barcelona player Abidal, who was preparing an international game with France and asked him to pass Ribéry. During an informal talk of about twenty minutes, Laporta assured the Frenchman that Barcelona still wants to sign him.

Catalan sports paper El Mundo Deportivo claims that Barcelona has set a limit of 40 million euro° for the transfer of Ribéry. Although Barcelona manager Josep Guardiola has indicated that the French attacker is his absolute priority, Barcelona doesn't want to surpass this limit because this could endanger other transfer operations.

Barcelona, that would already have closed a personal deal with Ribéry and reached a verbal agreement with Bayern (read more here), doesn't want to change the conditions previously agreed. The club is counting on the will of the player to join Barcelona and is convinced the market will cool off as the summer progresses. Barcelona and the German club would also have agreed that Barcelona will be informed about any concrete bid for Ribéry and will get the chance to match the bid (read more here).

Read more:
Deal with Ribery and pre-agreement with Bayern
Barcelona planning six transfers
Total deal on Ribery transfer