CSKA Moscow have rejected reports suggesting that Japan international Keisuke Honda is set to become a Lazio player.
Japanese midfielder continuing rehabilitation from injury
CSKA Moscow have rejected reports suggesting that Japan international Keisuke Honda is set to become a Lazio player.
Various sources in Italy and Japan claimed that CSKA had reached an agreement with Lazio earlier in the week for Honda to join Lazio in an €18million (£14.7m) deal.
However, the Russian outfit have publicly refuted the rumour and insisted that they have not been in touch with Lazio.
"The news from Italy is false. We haven't been in contact with Lazio lately," CSKA director Roman Babaev said on
calciomercato.com.
"Honda is in Barcelona doing rehabilitation and will join our training camp in a week's time when we will travel to Spain."
No contact
CSKA spokesperson Michael Sanadze further reinforced Babaev's comments by stating that no discussions had taken place since Lazio's failed attempt at signing the 25-year-old in January.
"Indeed we deny this categorically. Everything you have read in the papers today, they are nothing more than journalistic inventions," he was quoted as saying on
Football Italia.
"There is no truth in this story and we have no idea how it has been created. In winter there had been contact with Lazio, but we didn't close on anything.
"There was an offer made, of which I don't know the amount, but we refused it. Since then, there has been no official contact with the Biancocelesti."
Honda joined CSKA from Eredivisie's VVV-Venlo in the summer of 2010 but has struggled with injuries over the past couple of years.
