French International forward Franck Ribery looks like he will be staying at Bayern Munich as both European Cup final managers reveal their interest has cooled over the past few weeks. United boss Sir Alex Ferguson admitted that his club ‘explored’ the idea of signing the player, whilst Barcelona boss Pep Guardiola believes that the signing would be ‘impossible’.
The United boss was upfront about the potential transfer in a recent press conference “We didn’t try to buy Ribery, we explored it in a nice, quiet way when David Gill was at one of his meetings with Bayern in March. They told him, ‘absolutely no chance’ and the one thing you can say about Bayern is that, when they say something, they mean it. When we negotiated with them over Hargreaves, at the beginning they said ‘no’, but they also said that, if it ever changed, their minds, we’d be the first to know. It was exactly the same this time. There is no way that they will sell Ribery.”
Barcelona are currently in talks with Internazionale regarding a potential swap deal with Cameroon striker Samuel Eto’o and Swedish forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic – however believe that adding Ribery to their already impressive front line is now impossible. Pep Guardiola was quoted as saying “It seems impossible to me. I think he will not come. First of all because Bayern does not want to let him go. And then because his agent prefers that he go elsewhere.”
