Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy has issued a statement insisting midfielder Luka Modric is not for sale “at any price” and expressed his anger with Chelsea for going public with their £22 million bid for the player.
Chelsea promptly responded, claiming that it was “nonsense” to say they had gone public when there had been no official comment from the club.
According to reports, Chelsea will increase their bid up to as much as £35 million but need Modric to hand in a transfer request first.
“I wish to make it absolutely clear, as I have said previously, that none of our key players will be sold this summer,” read Levy’s statement.
“We are building a team for the future to consistently play at the highest level and retaining players is crucial to that.
“In respect of Luka Modric, we are not prepared to sell, at any price, to Chelsea or any other club. We made our stance abundantly clear in writing.
“They chose to ignore it and then subsequently made the offer public.”
In recent interviews, Modric has made it clear he wants to join Chelsea and claimed he had come to a verbal agreement with Levy when he signed his last contract extension that Spurs would consider any bids for him. However, Spurs insist there is no agreement.
Spurs boss Harry Redknapp said that if the club sold Modric it would “send out the wrong message”.
“We don’t want to be selling our best player, we want to be adding to the squad, not weakening it,” he said.
“Daniel has made a strong statement. We want to get back into the Champions League so we need all our best players.”
Although Modric has voiced his desire to move on from Tottenham, he has no intention of fighting to leave.
“I don’t want to fight and argue with Tottenham to leave,” he said.
Levy has made it abundantly clear to supporters that he will not be selling Modric.
“To avoid any doubt, let me reiterate that we shall not enter into any negotiations, with any club, regarding Luka,” he said.
“This matter is now closed.”
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