Barcelona have denied rejecting a bid from defender Gerard Pique to buy a stake in Barca Studios.
Barca sold just under 50% of the subsidiary company this summer for around €200 million to help fund the signings of Robert Lewandowski, Raphinha and Jules Kounde.
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A report in Diari Ara this week claimed that Pique, through his company Kosmos, had wanted to invest in Barca Studios and had been left frustrated that the club rebuffed his offer in favour of other proposals.
“In light of the information published in the newspaper Ara, Barcelona strongly deny that the club president [Joan Laporta] has ever received an offer to purchase part of Barca Studios from Pique or his company,” the Catalan club said in a statement on Wednesday.
“We find the spreading of uncorroborated information that can affect the standing and honour of Barcelona’s [players] lamentable.”
After selling 25% of their LaLiga television rights for the next 25 years to Sixth Street, Barca sold 24.5% of Barca Studios to Socios for around €100m.
However, despite those deals, they were still unable to register all their summer signings, so they sold a further 24.5% of Barca Studios, this time to Orpheus Media for another €100m.
