Barcelona defender refuses to accept proposals from Turkey

Barcelona completed their first signing of the January transfer window with the capture of Ferran Torres from Manchester City. However, the Catalans are unable to register him as of yet, due to their need to free up space on the wage bill.

The Blaugrana, to that end, are looking to offload some of the unwanted players on their roster at the earliest possible. Samuel Umtiti and Philippe Coutinho are two such footballers that the La Liga bigwigs are hoping to move on this month.

Coutinho, for one, is believed to have accepted his fate and is ready to secure an exit. However, the same cannot be said of Umtiti, who remains reluctant to leave Barcelona, reports SPORT.

At the club since 2016, the French centre-back is one of the highest-paid stars on the payroll. However, he has been out of favour at Camp Nou for a good part of the last two years now.

The 28-year-old started just six La Liga matches during the last season and has played just once in all competitions this time out. Gerard Pique, Ronald Araujo, Eric Garcia, Clement Lenglet, Oscar Mingueza are all ahead of him in the pecking order.

Having tried to offload Umtiti in the summer, Barça are again making an attempt to move him this month. A move to Fenerbahce had been mooted strongly, with the Turkish giants asking about the prospect of landing the 2018 FIFA World Cup winner.

However, as per the report mentioned above, the former Olympique Lyon defender has knocked back the approach from Fenerbahce and has no intentions of moving to Turkey. It is claimed that Umtiti would only consider leaving the Blaugrana for a club where he can compete for trophies.

This put Barça in a difficult position, and the report states that Umtiti’s continued refusal to leave the club could force them to consider the termination of his contract. Whether such a move is plausible remains to be seen, however.