Sao Paulo have confirmed they rejected a €35million (£27million) offer from Manchester United for midfielder star Lucas Moura.
Sir Alex Ferguson has made the Brazilian ace one of this priority targets this summer after securing the signings of Shinji Kagawa and Nick Powell last month from Borussia Dortmund and Crewe Alexandra respectively.
United representatives met with Lucas’ family and his agent Wagner Ribeiro on Tuesday night to discuss the transfer and are eager to complete the deal before the Premier League season starts.
The 19-year old , who is currently in England with Brazil’s Olympic squad, is thought to be valued at nearer £29m by Sao Paulo with having Real Madrid and Inter Milan seeing approaches turned down.
Director Marco Aurelio Cunha explained that the club only value Santos star Neymar to be worth more than Lucas with the striker said to have a £50m price tag on his head.
“Manchester United made a very important offer of €35million but they would need to produce a little more,” Cunha was quoted as saying byTMW.
“For us there is only Neymar worth more, after him is Lucas and we would not want to sell for less than this sort of value.
“For us it is still better to have a good player than lots of money in the bank.”
Meanwhile, Ferguson revealed United have submitted an offer for Arsenal striker Robin Van Persie as he looks to leave the Emirates Stadium.
“Obviously Arsenal have given out the fact that we’ve made a bid for him,” said Ferguson.
“We try to keep business as close as possible to us until the moment we conclude a deal. There’s no point talking about something that might not happen.
“There are other clubs interested in the player. We’ve shown an interest and that’s where we’re at at the moment.”