Chairman Keen To Play Barcelona

(Written by Tactful Sheik)

Dundee United chairman Eddie Thompson is sounding confident that the club can tempt Barcelona to Tannadice in July.

The Spanish club are interested in playing Dundee United and Hibs in pre-season friendly matches this summer, but there main stumbling block so far has been over money.

Barcelona want a large appearance fee and are not willing to guarantee that any of their big name stars will play in the proposed exhibition match.

However, Eddie Thompson believes that the clubs can come to an agreement that could see Ronaldinho, Eto'o, Messi and Deco play at Tannadice.

The match comes on the 20th anniversary of Dundee United reaching the UEFA Cup final, when they also beat Barcelona home and away at the quarter-final stages of the same cup campaign.

"Discussions have been going on for some time," admitted Eddie Thompson.

"An Irish promotions company (Platinum One) are organising a trip to St Andrews for Barcelona so that they can play the Old Course."

"The promoters also thought it would be a good idea if they had a couple of games while they were here— for training purposes and to spread the cost of the trip."

"A group of 40-45 will be coming and includes all their top stars. The likelihood at the moment is that the first game, if it happens, would be against Dundee United and the second game would be against Hibernian within a matter of days."

"I have been given a date of July 26 as a possibility but we haven't actually gone into the details as yet."

Although, even Eddie Thompson suggested the money issue could prevent the match from going ahead.

He said, "We've now received the proposals from the promoters into how the finances would work."

"That's a very important aspect, so I'm now going to look into that this week."

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