Poulsen punished for meeting with Barcelona

Sevilla midfielder and Danish international Christian Poulsen (28) has been left out of the squad for this weekend's game against Real Valladolid. Since the player is not injured and although the player has denied the rumour, it is believed that the club wants to punish the player for a meeting with Barcelona sports director Txiki Begiristain earlier this week (read more here) while Sevilla had asked the players to focus on the last games of the season and to set personal things aside.

Asked about a possible meeting, Sevilla president José María del Nido said yesterday that he could not say anything about it: "I know everything what has happened but I cannot deny or confirm that Poulsen has met with a representative of Barcelona. I do can tell you that they have not talked with us, in the first place because they know that I don't talk about players before the season ends. In any case, I don't think the meeting was with Txiki, cause he is dealing with other things."

Catalan sports paper Sport says that Barcelona is not interested in Poulsen. The only Sevilla player they want to transfer is right back defender Dani Alves and to keep good relations with Sevilla the club is very careful not to approach other players. Barcelona officials would therefore have denied that a meeting with Poulsen took place and that Begiristain was working in Barcelona on Wednesday and did not travel to Sevilla that day.

Read more:
Meeting with Poulsen
Poulsen deal under lock and key
First Poulsen contact