Barcelona president Joan Laporta has refused to confirm whether his club were offered the chance to sign Cristiano Ronaldo from Manchester United earlier this summer.
Ronaldo is believed to have told the Red Devils at the start of the month that he wants to leave the club in the current window in order to move to a Champions League team.
The Portugal international has thus far been unsuccessful in his apparent attempts to secure an exit, with Bayern Munich, Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain all ruling themselves out of the running.
There were also rumours that Barcelona were offered the 37-year-old by his agent Jorge Mendes during a period when they were finding it difficult to come to an agreement with Bayern over Robert Lewandowski.
However, the Catalan outfit ultimately managed to sign Lewandowski from the Bundesliga champions, with Laporta insisting that the Poland international was always their leading target.
"Well, this type of story is all within the process of the summer window. There always appears a lot of news. But in the end the truth is we wanted Lewandowski," Laporta told CBS Sports when asked about Ronaldo.
"We have a very good relationship with Jorge Mendes. I have known him for a long time. He is one of the best player agents. He knows how to do his job and I respect him.
"In this case, we decided to go for Lewandowski and knew he was crucial to our success. So we went to Bayern instead. This is the reality. The other [Ronaldo] topic is just part of the "little history" of football. It's a very nice story, but you will always hear lots of contradictory news about it.
"Ronaldo is a very good professional and he's still so fit. He's a player who is very ambitious and competitive and I am sure he has a lot of options. He's still a player of Manchester United, an extraordinary club who I respect very much. His future is not my business. It's the business of Manchester United and Cristiano."
Ronaldo returned to Manchester at the start of last week for discussions over his future, and it is believed that he again told the Red Devils of his desire to leave before the end of the transfer window.
However, Man United are seemingly refusing to alter their stance, insisting that the experienced forward is not for sale this summer.
Ronaldo was not a part of the squad that travelled to Norway on Friday for Saturday's pre-season friendly with Spanish giants Atletico Madrid.
The Portuguese instead remained in Manchester and has seemingly confirmed that he will be involved in Sunday's match with Rayo Vallecano, which comes little over 24 hours after the game with Diego Simeone's side.
Sporting Lisbon and Napoli are the latest clubs to be linked with the striker, who is believed to be desperate to continue playing in the Champions League during the 2022-23 campaign.
Barcelona have ongoing financial issues but have been able to make five first-team signings in the current market, with Lewandowski being joined by Andreas Christensen, Franck Kessie, Raphinha and Jules Kounde at Camp Nou. body check tags ::
