Barcelona have already agreed personal terms with Lautaro Martinez, but the Spanish champions are struggling to settle on a deal with Inter Milan, according to Spanish journalist Guillem Balague.
The Catalan giants continue to be linked with a move for the Argentina international, who has scored 16 times in 31 appearances for Antonio Conte's side during the 2019-20 campaign.
According to Balague, Barca have agreed a contract with the centre-forward, but the complications surrounding a swap deal means that a move is far from being completed.
"In terms of Arthur, let me tell you that it's not true that Spurs want him," Balague said on official his YouTube channel. "That's not true. It's been put out there. Inter is a different situation, Inter would like him to be part of a deal for Lautaro Martinez, that's the player that Barcelona have got an agreement with.
"There's an agreement between Barcelona and the player, the player and Barcelona, that's all. Not Inter and Barcelona and because of it, it needs to be agreed. Inter is open to negotiate, Lautaro Martinez obviously happy to go to Barcelona, Barcelona happy to have him, but they cannot afford him in terms of only paying cash so they want to offer players.
"How about [Jean-Clair] Todibo? How about [Samuel] Umtiti? How about [Ivan] Rakitic? And Inter have said 'how about Arthur?'. The idea is not to sell Arthur and Arthur doesn't want to leave Barcelona, but everybody at Barcelona is for sale.
"So this week the message from Barcelona is that Arthur is not for sale, Arthur's saying 'I don't want to leave' and of course Quique Setien wants him to stay. But as I'm saying because the market is so complex, we will have to see what eventually happens with it. But that's the stand at the moment.
"Now that they have the agreement with the player they will try to get money from somewhere or make those swaps that I was telling you about earlier."
Martinez has also previously been linked with both Manchester City and Real Madrid.
Matt Law
