It appears recent reports linking the Gunners with a move for Sporting’s Joelson Fernandes are all but false.
Arsenal are not in talks whatsoever to sign teenage sensation Joelson Fernandes. This is according to his agent Kia Joorabchian.
The Gunners have been linked with the 17-year-old over the past few weeks. The teenager is the latest big name to emerge from Sporting’s academy.
Reports in Portugal claimed Arsenal were keen on his signature this summer.
In fact, claims also emerged that the Gunners were ready to shell out £45m for Fernandes.
There was a decent reason to believe the rumors. The teenager is also another player under the wing of super-agent Kia Joorabchian. Given the agent’s close ties with Arsenal, there was indeed a possibility the rumors could be true.
Speaking in an interview today, the Iranian-British agent has plainly denied Arsenal contacting him for Fernandes.
“Everybody is linking a lot of players to a lot of clubs, particularly more so with Arsenal than others,” Joorabchian told talkSPORT.
“Today I read something about Joelson Fernandes, that Arsenal have made an offer etc, etc.”
“He’s young, phenomenal talent, but we’ve never, ever spoken about him to Arsenal.”
“I’ve probably seen like 25 articles about him and Arsenal and it’s so untrue, because I’ve never even spoken about him, I’ve never even mentioned him to Arsenal.”
“He’s at Sporting and he’s young, he’s just broken into the first team at the age of 17, so he’s going to take time to mature and get there.”
“So there’s always a lot of rumours in the market because obviously we’re in the business where fans want to know and journalists have to try to see what’s going on and they’re going to pick up on the very smallest of rumours and run with it.”
“But sometimes it’s quite far from the truth.”
Arsenal can look away from this one now. Fernandes is not even in the Gunners’ transfer plans at the moment.
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