Sevilla reject Kondogbia bid

If you've been watching the under-20 World Cup (and why wouldn't you be?) you'll probably have seen quite a lot of the French team. Although they're underperforming at the tournament, there's a lot of talent there, and one of their better players has been Sevilla midfielder Goeffrey Kondogbia, who's been linked with Chelsea over the past few weeks. We know that the clubs have been talking -- the Blues have just announced the Marko Marin deal -- so is there something on the works on that front?

Someone's definitely looking to pick up Kondogbia if not us. Assuming these quotes aren't made up, Sevilla president Jose Maria del Nido has confirmed that they've rejected a bid for the 20-year-old -- and let out that he'll be obligated to sell at a very cheap price:

The bid [for Kondogbia] wasn't sufficient. The idea is that he continues growing here at Seville, just like he did last season.

There exists an obligation that if a formal, written offer of over six million Euros arrives then we must accept it and sell him, or match it and keep half of his economic rights. But they haven't done it in writing, which they must do.

Source: Mirror.

This is kind of odd. It's not entirely clear whether that €6 million release would actually be enough to buy Kondogbia, as he's not entirely owned by Sevilla. Third party ownership makes everything a confusing mess, and we shouldn't take this as meaning that the player would come that cheaply -- €12 million is more likely, since the club owns half of his rights.

If nothing else, though, this is pretty interesting. Assuming Chelsea are the club sniffing around here, I'd be interested in seeing them take the pursuit a little further. The economics might not make sense when one takes into account Kondogbia's owners, and Sevilla might just match the €6 million anyway (they should have plenty of money after selling Jesus Navas), but this is worth playing with.